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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24203056">will you still love me?</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/somewherenorth/pseuds/somewherenorth'>somewherenorth</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Canon Divergence, Explicit Sexual Content, Fix It Fic, Hurt/Comfort, Kinda, M/M, Mental Breakdown, Mental Health Issues, Slow Burn, Suicidal Thoughts, canonverse, eruri - Freeform</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 15:13:26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>20,523</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24203056</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/somewherenorth/pseuds/somewherenorth</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>after the war, levi and erwin are left alone with their feelings</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Levi/Erwin Smith</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>82</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>320</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>this is set in a timeline wherein erwin survives the reclamation of shiganshina without needing the titan serum, and goes on to bring peace. the details of how he achieved this are unimportant to this story. I’ll (hopefully) be updating weekly. enjoy, look after yourselves, and have a good day. </p><p> </p><p>big thanks to my lovely friend for beta reading ♡</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>I</p><p>
  <em>parting</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Two weeks after peace is settled, Erwin attends the celebrations in Mitras. It’s a welcome distraction; he’s spent the past fortnight avoiding Levi to the best of his ability – they’ve exchanged little more than a glances over the past few weeks – instead finding refuge in his quarters, whiling away the days reading or sleeping. Were it not for the obligatory celebrations, he’d still be in bed.</p><p>It begins with a solemn dirge, followed by a gaudy ceremony complete with rows of prancing horses in full regalia, brass bands, and rounds of raucous gunfire. Erwin stands among the other high-up officials, watching as line after line of the procession passes. It is, in a word, awful. But with Levi at his side, it’s bearable.</p><p><em>Levi</em>. Flint-eyed, stony-faced, steel-willed Levi, all trussed up in formalwear shimmering sapphire in the light of high noon. Perhaps the loveliest man alive, Erwin thinks. He steals a sideway glance at Levi. <em>Definitely</em>.</p><p>After the gaudy ceremony comes the party. With little time between leaving the celebrations and readying himself for the party, Erwin avoids Levi yet again. The ball is hosted at one of the nobles’ houses, a garish place with sweeping ceilings and huge, arrogant rooms. He dodges Levi’s gaze for the entire evening, avoids his old captain while he smiles and plays his part. He feels Levi’s eyes on his back as people flock to him, congratulating and thanking him. The place is full of fat merchants and simpering high-ups and Erwin can only stomach it for all of one hour before he starts praying for an escape.</p><p>He takes a sip of saccharine wine as a woman approaches. She’s fixed on him, dressed in purple frills and staggering like a titan, bug-eyed with drink as her tongue lolls between turgid lips. Erwin does his best to smile, though the sight of her makes him think of the stench of his comrades’ corpses, the memory of their torn bodies dangling from the mouths of man-eating beasts. His pulse quickens and his palms slick with sweat.</p><p>“It’s wonderful, Commander,” the woman croons, “all you’ve done.”</p><p>Erwin swallows and nods, “thank you.”</p><p>And so it continues. The nobles who ridiculed and mocked him for years, who wrote him off as a monster, now queue to congratulate him. Finally, he finds a lull in the plummy voices and the incessant questions and makes his escape, slipping between throngs of tipsy nobles and swaying officers, out towards the doorway. He slinks through the foyer and up the stairs, not pausing even when he hears the clattering of footsteps behind him, catching up.</p><p>“Erwin, the fuck are you going? It’s still early.”</p><p><em>Now</em> Erwin stops. Levi stands brash and boorish at the foot of the marble steps, staring up at him with something part-way between accusation and amusement.</p><p>“I’m tired. They’re very, well, enthusiastic,” Erwin smiles wryly, tipping his head to gesture to the party room where the hazy echoes of the voices drift through the open doorway.</p><p>Levi follows Erwin’s gaze and scowls, face softening as he looks back at Erwin, “the gardens are quiet. Don’t think any of those fucking idiots are there, either.”</p><p>Before Erwin can rein in his thoughts, he’s imagining a moonlit amble through the grounds, alone beneath the oily still of the night sky and the soft glow of the candlelight through the windows. Maybe he'd bump Levi's shoulder as they whiled away the hours talking – and after...? Perhaps a hug or, dare Erwin imagine, a kiss. His lips against Levi’s, the bitter taste of tea or whatever else Levi might taste of, perhaps Levi will allow Erwin to take his hand, allow Erwin to lead him back to his too-big room, allow Erwin to <em>have</em> him. But he’s taken enough from Levi, and he won’t take any more.</p><p>“Well?” Levi prompts, “it’s been busy since the war ended. You’ve been quiet.”</p><p>“It’s a lot to deal with,” Erwin says – it <em>is</em>, but memories of the war pale in comparison to the tangled mess of the thing he doesn’t dare name that lies between himself and Levi, “I’d best get to bed. I’m exhausted.”</p><p>“What’s wrong?”</p><p>“I told you, I’m tired.”</p><p>“Fuck’s sake, old man,” Levi scoffs, puckish, before his voice quietens, “alright. I’ll go back too and we can have tea?”</p><p>There’s hesitation in Levi’s voice now, an uncharacteristic pause, gentle, ever-so-cautious in the way he breaches the subject. Underneath his still surface, Levi blazes; Erwin sees it in the narrow press of his lips and the firm set of his jaw, the subtle stiffness in the way he holds himself and the quicksilver glint in his eyes.</p><p>And again, that image of Levi in his bed and completely <em>his</em>, trusting and giving in that way only Levi does, crosses his mind. He’s at once sore with want and giddy with a cold rush of anxiety, both of them at once turning his stomach.</p><p>“Too tired for tea, I’m afraid."</p><p>“What’s wrong?”</p><p>“Nothing,” Erwin says, turning to head upstairs and hoping desperately that if he repeats it enough he’ll come to believe it himself, “nothing’s wrong.”</p><p>“You’re avoiding everyone. We barely talk. That’s not fucking nothing.”</p><p>“I’ve been tired.”</p><p>“Bullshit,” Levi growls at his back, but Erwin hears no footsteps coming after him this time.</p><p>“I need to sleep, I have to pack up my old office tomorrow.”</p><p>“That doesn’t change shit.”</p><p>“Goodnight. Sleep well.”</p><p> </p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*</p>
  <p> </p>
</div><p>Erwin wakes late the next day. Spending the morning asleep is perhaps peacetime’s most pleasurable luxury. The sun sits high overhead by the time Erwin rises and makes tea for himself. His head aches and the room lurches when he moves. His foggy thoughts turn to Levi as he sips, sat by the window and gazing out over the gabled rooftops of the capital. With thoughts of Levi come thoughts of last night, how Levi had seen right through him. Erwin sighs. There’s a pang of shame somewhere deep in his chest at having avoided Levi for weeks. He swallows it down with another gulp of tea.</p><p>It’s for the best, as much as it hurts. There’s something between them, and he knows Levi feels it too. Whatever it is has been growing for years, slowly, steadily, and now it’s about to rear its ugly head. The thought of what could come if they so much as acknowledge it is unbearable. It’s easier to hide and to ignore it, to run from it before Levi can figure it out. He doesn’t want to hurt Levi anymore.</p><p>Erwin huffs and plucks a book from the shelf. He can’t focus on the words. Instead, all he can think of is that Levi had once mentioned the house he meant to buy once peace came, a rickety cottage by a river on the edge of a village, a place he’d pointedly said was big enough for two – Erwin had offered nothing but a curt nod in response, and changed the subject quickly. It was then that he’d decided to travel, to give Levi space to recover alone. They’d never spoken of Erwin's own plans, Levi steered clear of the subject. Perhaps he sensed Erwin’s intentions. Perhaps he didn’t want to know.</p><p>Once the teacup sits empty on the windowsill, Erwin dresses and pads downstairs. The sooner he packs up his old office, the sooner he can leave for the continent.</p><p>He’s stopped in the foyer by a familiar, excited yell.</p><p>“Hey, Erwin!” Hans shouts, jogging down the corridor and brandishing <em>something</em> at him, “look at this!”</p><p>“Hans, quiet, please,” Erwin winces as Hans stops beside him, headache throbbing, “what is it?”</p><p>“I found Moblit’s old sketchbook.”</p><p>“Oh?”</p><p>“Look.”</p><p>They thrust the book at Erwin, leaving him no choice but to take it. Most of the pages are dedicated to sketches of Hans – napping, eating, training, talking, researching, <em>everything</em> – page after reverent page of it. He turns another page and finds a scribble of himself and Levi, drinking tea together on what Erwin can only assume was a warm summer afternoon in the barracks. The windows behind them are flung open and, if Erwin isn’t mistaken, there’s a shadow of a smile on Levi’s face. Erwin stands and stares, stuck until Hans speaks again.</p><p>“Good, isn’t it? I forgot how good he was...”</p><p>“Yeah,” Erwin agrees, sheepishly handing back the sketchbook, “it is.”</p><p>“Where are you off to, then?”</p><p>“Packing up my old office,” Erwin replies, taking a step toward the door.</p><p>“Already? Organised as ever, Erwin,” they say, “nice day, too bad you’ll be stuck in the office, hm?”</p><p>“Yes, quite.”</p><p>With the hasty agreement, Erwin leaves Hans to the sketchbook and continues on his way, trying to forget about Moblit’s sketch of him and Levi. The walk from Mitras to the old headquarters is an easy amble, past markets with people milling around the street and lovers walking hand in hand in the sunlight. The headquarters stand stately on the outskirts of town, untouched and exactly as Erwin remembers it. Inside the corridors are caked in dust. The floorboards creak under each of his steps, bowing as he goes. His old office on the third floor is exactly as he left it.</p><p>Sighing, Erwin begins the long job of packing everything up. He gets two bookcases in before a sharp rap on the door draws his attention. Erwin knows exactly who it is, heart kicking in his chest with the anticipation. He can’t tell if it’s excitement or apprehension.</p><p>“Come in, Levi,” he calls over his shoulder, rising from his spot on the floor among the rickety piles of books. His joints ache as he does.</p><p>“Hans said you’d headed off this way,” Levi explains as he lets himself in, leaving the door hanging ajar behind him.</p><p>“Ah. Yes, I need to pack up my office.”</p><p>“Apparently you didn’t wake up until noon. What a slob.”</p><p>Erwin chuckles at the raillery, “I’m hungover. Go easy on an old man.”</p><p>Levi tuts, giving an affable shake of his head.</p><p>“So, what’re you doing after?”</p><p>Erwin’s shoulders sag. They haven’t spoken of his plans before and Erwin had, foolishly, hoped they <em>wouldn‘t</em>. It had hung in the air between them for years, a stormcloud, building and building, slowly as they fought and then quickly during the idle weeks of peace, when Erwin couldn’t pretend to be too busy to talk, when he’d had to hide away instead. Now the storm’s broken, it's a gale, a hurricane, lashing and howling and threatening to sweep Erwin off his feet in a flashflood of things he’d rather leave unsaid.</p><p>“After...?”</p><p>Levi <em>tch</em>es. “After this. After you’ve cleared your stuff.”</p><p>“Travel, probably.”</p><p>“Alone?”</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>“And after that?” Levi’s tone hasn’t changed, but Erwin’s caught the darkening of his expression, the slight furrowing in his brows that gives away the tumult beneath.</p><p>Erwin feels sick to the soul, guts twisting in cold knots. He ignores it as he replies, “I’ll find a woman, have a family. Move to the countryside, probably.”</p><p>“A wife?” Levi cocks an eyebrow, “<em>that’s</em> what you want?”</p><p>“Of course.”</p><p>“After all this shit? You want a fucking wife?”</p><p>Levi stands rigid, strung taut like an animal on edge about to bolt into the underbrush, never to be seen again. The rigid set of his shoulders isn’t aggressive - it's unsure, it’s afraid. It's foreign, an ill-fit for Levi’s sharp face. In all his years of watching Levi slay fifty-foot monsters, Erwin has never seen him look quite as he does now, stiff with his perennial scowl dark in the midafternoon gloom of Erwin’s old office. Even from across the room, he can make out the fearful pallor on Levi’s face.</p><p>“Yes. Of course.”</p><p><em>Of course.</em> Levi goes quiet then. Pettish, quick-witted Levi can find no more words. His face looks gaunt, old, weary. Erwin aches. <em>He</em> did this, <em>he</em> made Levi hurt. He reminds himself it’s for the best, it’s to save Levi more hurt yet. What wretched luck Levi must have, Erwin thinks, to be so determined to follow him, even after his duty has ended.</p><p>Erwin gives a rueful smile, pushing down the wave of nausea rising in his belly. “I’ve made my choice. I finally have the chance to see the world, really <em>see</em> it, and afterwards to have a family.”</p><p>“Is that why you’ve been avoiding me?”</p><p>Levi’s found his words again.</p><p>“I haven’t been avoiding you. Things have been busy.”</p><p>“Bullshit,” Levi spits, tigerish now, “we just had two weeks with fuck all to do. You think I’m fucking stupid?”</p><p>It takes all of Erwin’s steely nerves not to shrink away. Facing the beast titan, going to war, losing his arm - it’s all dwarfed now, nothing compared to trying to outlast Levi’s dogged scrutiny. He snarls like a beast undone, lip curled and hackles raised. Erwin feels one wrong move away from a mauling.</p><p>“Of course not. I’ve had these plans for a while. I didn’t have the chance to tell you earlier, I’m sorry.”</p><p>More silence falls between them. Erwin thinks bitterly that he prefers the screams of dying men to the quiet that’s settled in his office.</p><p>“Erwin...” Levi speaks softly now; the squall has passed, replaced with something sadder, heavier, “I don’t know that the fuck is wrong and I don’t know how to help. If this shit is what you really want, then I hope it makes you happy.”</p><p>Levi sounds resigned to it, the same way he way he sounded when he’d resigned himself to Erwin’s expedition to the basement all those years ago.</p><p>“Me too,” Erwin answers, paltry-voiced and somber-faced.</p><p>Levi doesn’t glare now, he just watches with doleful, hooded eyes. Erwin can't hold his gaze. He’s supine, feckless to the bone. Able to send hundreds of thousands of men to their deaths, but apparently incapable of looking Levi in the eye.</p><p>“I’m going to head off now. Got shit I need to sort out.”</p><p>“Alright,” Erwin says gently, finally looking Levi in the face again.</p><p>“If you need me, you know where I am.”</p><p>“I do.”</p><p>Levi doesn’t say anything else as he turns his back and leaves. He throws Erwin a final parting glance over his shoulder. Erwin watches, taking in his last look of Levi’s face. He stays stood, rooted to the floorboards and watching the empty doorway, listening to Levi’s footsteps mellow and fade away. The barracks are silent around him, watching. Outside, a lone songbird warbles.</p><p>Erwin returns to his old spot among the towers of books. Dust hangs in the air. The sun stares down on him as he leafs through heavy yellowing pages, faded and frayed against his fingertips. The words blur as tears prick at his eyes. He doesn’t deserve Levi, he reminds himself, Levi will be happier alone with the chance to move on. Erwin's made sacrifices his whole life – this one will be no different.</p><p>The crates of books and old scribbled notes pile up as Erwin clears the room. When he flicks through a small, brown paperback a note flutters from the pages. He stoops low to catch it, unfurling the crinkled paper in his palm and finding a neatly written note: <em>take a shower, old man. I can smell you from my office</em>. It’s Levi’s handwriting, Erwin knows as soon as he sees it.</p><p>They used to exchange silly notes years ago, sending go-betweens to and fro when their schedules were too severe to allow for a meeting. This one could even have been before the appearance of the colossal titan. Erwin chokes on a single, miserable sob and shoves the note into his jacket pocket. He’s sick to his stomach, sick of everything.</p><p>His hands tremble as he packs the last of his things, terrified he’ll come across another memento of that time with Levi. The sun hangs low in the sky, gilding the office gold. Erwin looks back at the empty room, a skeleton torn bare of its flesh, and for the first time in over a decade, he isn’t sure <em>what</em> he feels.</p><p>He arranges the crates into the carriage waiting on the cobbles and looks back at the headquarters for a moment, frowning. Erwin turns his back, wipes his eyes, and leaves.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>II</p><p>
  <em>wayward</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Salt-spray springs and stings at Erwin’s eyes, forcing him back from the railings as the ship’s prow cleaves the waves. Here, with the sea breeze ruffling his hair and Paradis slipping away into the offing, Erwin can forget about the memories of his past that harried him from his office all the way to the docks.</p><p>Thick anticipation tempers the guilt, and the thrill of the wine-dark depths below distracts him from the things he’d rather not think about. The reprieve has excitement warming his chest, as roiling and effervescent as the sea foaming against the hull, cresting white horses tossing their heads in fervent ardor. His knuckles pale with each buck of the waves and the sight of Marley rising out of the ocean on the horizon sets him aquiver.</p><p>The world is his to explore – freely, <em>finally</em> - and once he docks he takes the first train he can, eager to go anywhere, <em>everywhere</em>. He gazes out of the widow as they set off, captivated by the city sprawled around the tracks. It’s as vibrant a place as he’s ever seen, people of every kind going about their lives and Erwin gets to see it <em>all</em>. The landscape is similar to Paradis and yet alien at the same time, green and lush with trees and farms and far-off hills, but littered with roads and studded with pylons, a sight Erwin hasn’t yet grown used to.</p><p>A small town perched among rocky mountains is his first stop that evening, when the sun is cradled low in the sky between the dagger-like peaks and the shadows stretch long dark gashes over the valley below. The train station is built on a precarious overhang – the valley floor is at least a wall and a half below, Erwin thinks, perhaps more – and without his ODM gear Erwin feels horribly exposed as he steps out and drags his suitcase with him, sickened at the thought of putting a foot wrong and tumbling to his death.</p><p>He doesn’t dwell on the fear for long, though - the mountain air is like nothing he’s felt before, cold and clear as ice on his cheeks, and cleaner even than a freshly-scrubbed floor. An eagle wheels effortlessly on the thermals above, screeching out in its sad, wailing way as Erwin flits between the streets and stumbles into the first inn he finds.</p><p>It’s a cozy, rustic place with a warm glow and smoky air from the logs crackling in the fireplace. People sit shoulder-to-shoulder, clacking glasses and guffawing as they play cards and drink the evening away.</p><p>Erwin orders a beer from a barmaid with blazing red hair and cheeks dappled with freckles. She grins at him, wild and charming in much the same way as an unbroken filly. Erwin watches with half an eye as she prances around the bar, tossing her mane of wave-crest curls and talking to each of her patrons as if they were the most interesting person in the room. Her laugh is a whinny, good-natured and raucous, and it cuts straight through the muddy background noise.</p><p>“You’re not from around here,” she nickers, filling a glass and glancing up at him with a coy smile.</p><p>“No, I’m not,” Erwin agrees, humouring her, “I’m just visiting.”</p><p>“Like it?”</p><p>“Yes,” Erwin nods, genuinely this time, “I do.”</p><p>“Good,” the barmaid smiles brightly, “I’m Mila.”</p><p>“Erwin.”</p><p>She waves her hand, dismissing his introduction, “I know, you goose. Everyone knows.”</p><p>“Is that so?” Erwin takes a sip, eyeing Mila with a new curiosity.</p><p>She snorts at that, apparently amused and unafraid to show it, and for a moment Erwin sees Levi in her, snorting at his ridiculous façade as he liked to do. His heart pangs and it feels as if something inside him splinters at the mere thought of Levi. He takes a sip of the beer to soothe himself, finding it smooth and easy on his tongue, and watches as Mila busies off. She pours more drinks and chats to the punters, giving Erwin time to find his ease and listen to the thrum around him.</p><p>An hour or so later, she returns and slams a whiskey down onto the rough pine countertop in front of him. Erwin looks up, startled.</p><p>“Oh, I didn’t order that.”</p><p>“It’s on the house,” Mila winks, “you like whiskey? It’s our best.”</p><p>“Yes,” Erwin grins brazen, his restraint in tatters after the beer he’s already had, “thank you.”</p><p>He stays until the bar begins to empty, talking to the Mila and the locals sat either side of him about their lives in the mountains. Before he knows it, Erwin’s agreed – eagerly, admittedly – to return home with her.</p><p>Together they totter into her rickety flat above the village’s main street, Mila hanging off of Erwin’s arm and making him laugh when her lips tickle his neck. Her place is haphazard, strewn with clothes and completed by a tangle of timber beams holding the ceiling up, each wall adorned with photographs and keepsakes. Their kisses are numb and blurred with drink. Stumbling through the murk, Erwin follows her gentle hands to bed. Her hair fans out on the pillow, the colour of the sea alight beneath the sunset, and his lips follow the hollow of her throat, the dip of her collar down to the swell of her chest.</p><p>Miraculously, there’s no hangover when he wakes. Mila’s window opens out onto the brutal valley and Erwin catches sight of baleful clouds swelling like purple bruises on the horizon, rearing dark waves over the mountaintops. Mila sits up, stretching and yawning and muttering <em>goodmorning</em> before she stands and begins to dress without ceremony. Erwin follows suit, and for a moment the two of them are silent, before Mila pipes up.</p><p>“What happened to your friend?” She asks out of the blue, looking at him in her mirror, “always wondered.”</p><p>“My - what?”</p><p>“The little man. Your, uh, Captain, was it? Lieutenant? He followed you around like a shadow.”</p><p>“Levi?” Erwin’s heart kicks at the mention of him, frantic in his chest like a wild thing.</p><p>“Dunno,” Mila shrugs, “dunno his name.”</p><p>“I think you mean Levi,” Erwin forces a smile, even now driven to keep his mask on, compelled by something inexorable, as great a force as the sea itself, “he was my Captain.”</p><p>“Hm,” she grunts, pulling on her skirt, “what happened to him? He not with you?”</p><p>“He retired,” Erwin says matter-of-factly, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, “he’s still on Paradis. He’s not one for travelling.”</p><p>Mila says nothing more of it, apparently uninterested in the finer details of Levi’s life. Erwin wishes he could say the same. They say their goodbyes with affable smiles and a final little wink that Mila throws over her shoulder before she trots off to start her shift. Erwin catches a train away that afternoon.</p><p> </p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*</p>
  <p> </p>
</div><p>Three months after his dalliance in the mountain town, he finds himself staying with a rancher on the steppe. A one-time fling turns into a fortnight lazing at Nik’s farmhouse, tending to the herds of cattle and horses out on the plain beneath the blazing sun. Strangely, when he looks at Nik Erwin thinks of Mike; both huge men, strong and hulking as stags, but in the same instance wholly gentle, and deft with horses.</p><p>He takes lover after lover as he moves on, a new one for each town he stays in. Erwin doesn’t <em>know</em> what compels him and he doesn’t <em>want</em> to. He follows his whims without question and charms his partners in the same way he charmed the nobles out of their money and his soldiers out of their lives all those years ago. He’s a fraud, a charlatan, a demon in man’s clothes. His old critics were right, Erwin realises as he cons person after person into believing he’s worthy of their time, but he can’t quite bring himself to care.</p><p>Over the months – and as much as Erwin tries to ignore it – he sees a telltale pattern emerging in his bedmates. All are dark-haired men with stormcloud eyes and spitfire tempers, none of them taller than Erwin’s chin. A sorry mismatch of Levi stand-ins, Erwin realises with an acerbic sickness growing in his stomach, each one a shoddier imitation than the last.</p><p>Onwards he goes, wasting away under foreign skies and following the keening cries of strange animals in the hills. He doesn’t have any other plan but to go wherever the trains take him and to experience as much as he can of whichever place he ends up. Each new land distracts him for a month, a day, a week. The new buildings, the new plants, the new people draw his fascination, granting him a reprieve from the past. He’s a boy again, wide-eyed and wondering at new world around him.</p><p>It’s the closest to whole he’s felt in as long as he can remember, perhaps even since the death of his father. But he knows it would be better, so much better, if Levi were there at his side, scowling and making his usual snide remarks as the world passes him by. Levi weighs on his mind, always with him, haunting.</p><p> </p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*</p>
  <p> </p>
</div><p>It takes four years of wandering for Erwin to return to Paradis and settle. He’s seen oceans choked with ice, mountains spewing fire, and animals beyond his imagining. He’s seen all he wants, for now, and sets his sight on his next goal: a home, as normal a life as a man like Erwin can achieve.</p><p>He chooses a dour town on the north coast. It’s a new settlement, connected by rail and road and scarcely three years old, clustered around a bay cradled on each side by ferocious cliffs, rows of bared teeth snarling down on the huddled roofs. It isn’t quite the house in the countryside he’d first thought of, but once he collects his boxes of belongings from the warehouse he’d arranged to have them stored in and begins to fill the pantry with food, Erwin can see the shaky beginnings of a home.</p><p>His house, built of red bricks and nestled in a neat sidestreet, has a clear view of the ruthless sea from the two rooms in the second floor, down between a couple of steep gables. Erwin fills the bedroom with all of his old books and keepsakes from his time as Commander. It’s softer now, somehow, and Erwin finds himself missing the harshness of his old life.</p><p> </p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*</p>
  <p> </p>
</div><p>The town’s pub is a welcome distraction from the foggy disconnect that takes hold once Erwin’s unpacked. It’s vague, uncomfortable kind of unease, a barely-there wisp of a thought that something’s <em>not right</em>. Erwin spends his first evening in the pub to avoid it, talking and drinking and laughing into the early hours of the morning. The pub, named <em>The Jolly Cod</em>, becomes a refuge of sorts – though even here, in the most miserable, far-flung corner of Paradis, people recognize him.</p><p>Women and men alike take turns to sit and talk, offering up glib words of thanks and affable smiles. Erwin comes to like them, but good as those nights are, Erwin can’t shake the feeling that he’s a fraud, that he’s conning his new friends the way he used to con everyone else, from the men he sent to die to the piggy noblemen who funded his expeditions and the partners he met on his travels. Erwin drowns the thought out as best he can.</p><p>On heavy summer nights, when the air is sultry and stagnant, dripping sticky with sea salt and something dark and beguiling, Erwin finds better distractions than alcohol alone. An occasional lover makes for a pleasant way to pass the time, Erwin finds, and an excellent way of escaping nagging, gnawing thoughts that begin to claw at him, threatening to undo him if he dwells on them for too long. One evening he’s with a prim young woman who reminds him of Marie, the next a gruff fisherman with amber eyes and a body pale as a bled-out corpse, and the next a farmer in town for the market. Anyone who piques his interest and invites him back is good enough.</p><p>Erwin picks out a routine as he pieces his jumbled life back together; wake with the sun, go for a swim, shower, pick up the day’s food at the market, and spend the afternoon reading or writing. Erwin goes about his life ignoring the way he misses Levi’s gentle presence. His days are cloyed with willful ignorance, sickly denial dulcet like overripe fruit. He turns his back on the way he misses Levi and the way he aches to again be held in Levi’s gaze, to be understood and to in turn understand.</p><p> </p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*</p>
  <p> </p>
</div><p>For a while, it works. He falls into an easy rhythm, natural as the ebb and flow of the tides and careless as the drifting gulls above. It’s only as his second summer there wanes that the whisky, the endless platters of seafood, and the casual lovers cease to be enough. A darkness rolls in like a fog off the sea, so slowly that Erwin doesn’t notice it at first.</p><p>Before long even the sunny days are gloomy. In the nighttime Erwin hears the dying cries of the men he sent to be eaten and during the day he lies listless in bed as if anchored there. Blue skies and the bright sun gaze down on something pitiful. Erwin’s days are dark around the edges, betraying a façade that he both longs and fears to rip away, afraid of what he’ll find behind it all. He tries not to dwell on it, afraid that one day, if he thinks too hard, he’ll catch on the ragged edges and the whole world will unravel around him.</p><p>Slowly, Levi creeps back into his mind. Thoughts of what they had catch up with him as he ambles along he seashore, hazy fantasies of what could have been if only Erwin hadn’t been so <em>stupid</em>. Regret is a bitter sickness indeed, a lonely kind of malaise that he can’t shake off. He can’t freeze it away with early morning swims, nor burn it out with bottles of biting vodka in the evenings.</p><p>He sees Levi in the shadows of his house, in the dark alleys, in the crevices beneath the cliffs. One night he sees cat’s eyes gleaming grey in the gloaming and thinks of his old Captain. Erwin can feel himself slipping away, rotting with each day he spends cowering beneath the sheets, and the ghostly memory of Levi watches it all. The spectre of Levi Ackerman is cold and aloof as the moon itself, indifferent while Erwin suffers - <em>like he should</em>, he reminds himself - as he repays his debts and gives his pound of flesh.</p><p>Erwin's sure that this rot will be the end of him. He’s old now, and he can only ignore so much. There’s nowhere left to run. He’s a man on a cliff’s edge, an execrable precipice, about to fall and break on the snaggletooth rocks below, body shattered and lapped up by the hungry sea. One more thought of Levi, one more gust of wind, and he’ll be thrown from the edge.</p><p>Erwin doesn’t fight it; he knows he deserves nothing more.</p><p> </p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*</p>
  <p> </p>
</div><p>Erwin’s forty-seventh birthday is his worst. He wakes to a rusty sunrise and immediately wishes he hadn’t. Tormented by the same lethargy as every other morning, crushed and aching under the inertia of another day, he rises at noon. His birthday feels no different to any other. Worse, actually, he thinks dully.</p><p>Old habits die hard and though the day is overcast, sky blanketed by swathes of velvet-grey clouds, he still trudges down the paved streets for his morning swim. The sweet smell of rain hangs in the air as Erwin pads down the beach. He braces his toes into the sand, leaning into the waves and the water lapping at his waist, autumn cold against goosepimple flesh. Only madmen swim in the freezing October swells, but the cold doesn’t matter, the way he looks doesn’t matter - <em>especially</em> if he isn’t coming back.</p><p>Erwin swims out at a leisurely breaststroke, kicking at the current and paddling awkwardly with until the seabed drops away and he’s alone in the freezing open water. When he dives under he feels the ocean's tug, the sea’s great hands sweetly beckoning him down. What monsters lie down there, Erwin wonders, in the greenish greyish depths? He thinks of the old Gods in his old books, Neptune and Poseidon, Ea and the Abzu, and dares to swim further down with his next breath. He wonders if this is his is his denouement, to be swallowed up by the deep and to be swept away, to disappear. Erwin finds that he doesn’t mind the idea of it – not at all.</p><p>Half an hour later, he drags himself back onto the beach unscathed. Not even the sea wants him, it seems.</p><p>The rest of the day is just as much of a letdown. The sun sets early and leaves Erwin in the umbra, alone beneath his flickering electric lights to eat and drink until the world spins and the room lurches and everything he’s eaten churns horribly in his stomach. His head lolls forward, drool hanging from the corner of his mouth. Levi’s last words are etched into his mind, stronger with each burning gulp of whisky. <em>You know where I am</em>.</p><p>Erwin lunges suddenly for parchment and a pen, sending his quarter-full bottle of whisky flying off the table with an ill-calculated flail of his arm. It shatters, gleaming like shards of ice over the parquet. Erwin pays it no heed – there are much, much more important matters to tend to.</p><p><em>Dear Levi</em>, he begins, pausing with the nib against the paper as he fumbles for words, the rivulet of ink stopped in its tracks as he thinks. His fingers tremble, be it from drink or from agitation. The words come slowly, painfully, one after the other after the other. He begins by telling Levi of the things he saw on his travels, then by telling Levi how sorry he is, how mistaken he was. He unravels with each sentence, ripping himself apart word by wretched word until a miserable lump rises in his throat. He leaves his address and an invitation to visit before he signs his name, reaching for the address-book as fat tears begin to fall, burning salty and wicked on his cheeks. The ink smudges as Erwin seals the envelope.</p><p>He staggers drunken like a madman on his way to the postbox, almost slipping on the rainsoaked cobbles as he slots the letter in and turns to head back inside, hunched over against the wind and the darkness. The post is collected daily – apart from on Sundays, he remembers blearily – and his letter will be in Levi’s hands before the week’s end.</p><p> </p>
<p></p><div class="center">
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  <p> </p>
</div><p>Autumn yields to winter as the year ends without word from Levi. Blizzards tear through and the sea rages harder with each storm that passes. Erwin’s sanguinity fades over the weeks he spends huddled up inside, drinking cocoa and sleeping through the days to the sound of lashing rain, nothing but fading, washed-out hope to carry him through the gales.</p><p>A letter arrives one brisk day on the cusp of spring. Erwin’s heart leaps in his throat as soon as he sees it wedged in the letterbox, palms slick and insides twisting, almost tripping over himself in his haste to reach it. <em>He’s going to see Levi again</em>. Erwin lets himself believe that he’ll see Levi’s neat, tight-reined handwriting when he turns over the envelope.</p><p>Instead of Levi’s familiar print, however, he finds the sneering insignia of the military police, the green unicorn staring up at him, ridiculing him for daring to believe a man like Levi could ever want him back. Burning, biting tears of frustration prick at Erwin’s eyes, his disappointment bitter as straight black tea.</p><p>He flings the letter onto the table and doesn’t dare open it for another week, nauseated by just the sight of it, until his frustration peaks and snaps, breaking like a great storm cloud. He rips the letter in his fervor, caught up in some frenzy as he scans the words, drinking them in as quickly as he can. A celebration to mark the lasting peace was being hosted in a fortnight, according to the letter, and as former Commander, Erwin is wanted as a guest of honour.</p><p>Erwin’s bags are packed a week in advance. He spends the days leading up to his departure wishing with all of his will that Levi might choose to go as well, frivolous and unnecessary as he knows Levi would find it all. He paces and preens and paces again as he waits to set off. His solemn reflection catches his eye when he passes his mirror, and there he sees a gnarled old man with sunken eyes, deep-gouged frown lines, and worn, leathery skin. His hair, once gilded gold, sits in dull straw-grey tangles atop his head.</p><p>He isn’t the man he used to be.</p><p> </p>
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  <p> </p>
</div><p>The morning he sets off for the train station is cold and grey, the typical harshness of early spring. A now-familiar anxiety rises in his chest as he watches his train groan to a halt at the platform. He takes a dowdy seat at the window, listening to the idle burble of the engine, praying again that he’ll find Levi hidden away in the haughty, sweeping ballrooms of Sina’s inner city and wondering <em>what</em> he could possibly say to make things right again.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>this chapter was tricky to write and it took longer than I expected, I hope it reads ok : ) the next one will be up friday</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>III</p><p>
  <em>reunion</em>
</p><p> </p><p>The celebrations are just as dull as they had been all those years before. Erwin stands with Nile after they’ve hugged and exchanged niceties – asking about Marie, telling briefly about his own travels – and Erwin misses the first parts of the parade in favour of scouring the crowd of guests for Levi. He finds a hoard of old, familiar faces, everyone from the surviving hundred-and-fourth to his old military police counterparts but he does not, however, see Levi.</p><p>Erwin’s search becomes frantic when he realises. Has Levi not come? Is it all for nothing? For a moment Erwin thinks so – of course, Levi would <em>hate</em> an event like this. He looks back over the crowd again, checking each individual face, hoping, praying.</p><p>His heart misses a beat when he finally, <em>finally</em> catches sight of Levi, stood at Hans' side three rows in front, short and grim-faced as ever. He’s primmed-up in formalwear and grey peppers the hair at his temples. Deep-gouged frown-lines cross what little Erwin can see of his face, framing hooded, doleful eyes. He looks old now, weary, yet he’s still as beautiful as the day Erwin left, ageing as gracefully as Erwin always knew he would.</p><p>He spends the rest of the ceremony trying not to stare, but Levi proves to be far more dazzling than any of that afternoon’s processions.</p><p> </p>
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  <p> </p>
</div><p>The evening’s party arrives in a blur of garish ball gowns. The hall is lit by candles and draped in lavish decorations, complete with throngs of leering officers and already-tipsy soldiers. The place is full of people who ask and probe and swarm, curious to hear about Erwin’s travels, his accomplishments, the things he still meant to do. He stands crammed almost shoulder-to-shoulder as they follow him to the table of drinks and canapés, chatting about everything – their wives, their children, their own happenings – and though Erwin wants nothing more than to push them aside and search for Levi, he’s sober enough still to push down his own wants and force himself to smile and listen.</p><p>It’s awkward to be around these people again, Erwin realises as he stumbles over his words for the first time in his life, daunted by his old comrades and distracted by the memories they bring back. His palms slick with sweat at the thoughts of their past, and their shadowed faces remind him of titans and dead men. Erwin grows more nervous with each passing minute. A sea of people bustle around him, voices like the rushing rumble of waves over pebbles, jostling him to and fro. Each touch winds him up more than the last, kindling an inferno of frustration deep in his chest.</p><p>“Erwin!”</p><p>Erwin twists, turning to see whoever yelled for him. His face relaxes when he catches sight of Hans weaving through the crowd toward him. His frustration dies to a glowing ember. The men talking to him fall away as Hans shoves their way through, barging with their shoulder like an ox through the herd. As soon as they’re near enough they pull Erwin into a great bear hug, so strongly that some of Erwin’s drink sloshes onto the floor. He’s pleased to find their hair smells sweetly of lavender.</p><p>“How are you?” They ask, once they’ve let Erwin go.</p><p>“I’m good, I’m good,” he smiles, lying as easily as the bird flies, “and you? It’s wonderful to see you again.”</p><p>“Oh, I’m great,” they grin, “I’ve been studying plants, the ocean, animals – I’ve teamed up with some scientists up north! We found new species of polar jellyfish, it’s amazing, you should see them. You could come one day, you know? They’d love to have you, everyone really looks up to you...”</p><p>Erwin lets Hans babble on, feeling a fleeting pang of guilt for not listening – he really is a terrible friend – but his mind is elsewhere, already thinking about Levi. The thought of seeing him again, properly, and talking to him, sends Erwin ajitter. Anxiety and alcohol roiling together in his stomach begin to make him feel ill. He drains his glass again regardless.</p><p>“Oh, there’s Gunther,” Hans chirps up suddenly, “I’m gonna go talk to him. Have you spoken to Levi yet? I think he’s around here somewhere; he’ll probably want to speak to you as well.”</p><p>“I’ll keep an eye out,” Erwin assures.</p><p>Apparently Levi hadn’t spoken of their falling-out, and Erwin is endlessly glad of that.</p><p>“Alright,” Hans says, heading off, “see ya later!”</p><p>Erwin watches them buzzing away, collaring Gunther excitedly. He refills his drink, retreating to the corner of the room to calm down and take a moment’s rest. There, hidden away in the dark, draped shadows, he finds a reprieve.</p><p>Erwin catches a glimpse of Levi on the other side of the hall, swamped by a pack of noblewomen who smile down at him like wolves on a deer. Levi looks unimpressed and no doubt is speaking with his usual boorish roughness, but whenever he opens his mouth the gaggle of bystanders grin and shift excitedly. Erwin’s never seen Levi interested in a woman before – or a man, on that note – and as he watches his curiosity wanes, mellowing into a sickly kind of yearning. Every inch of him, every hair, every bone, <em>aches</em> to talk to Levi again.</p><p>However long Erwin stands and stares, watching half-shrouded by the shadows, the more it starts to dawn on him that Levi refuses to look over. Erwin’s sure Levi can see him, he’d bet his life on it, and yet he never looks. With each long second that passes, the urge to go over grows until it’s a surge of <em>need</em> - but if Levi doesn’t want him to approach, he won’t.</p><p>The realisation that Levi might never willingly talk to him again is cold as ice, twisting freezing knots in his chest. He never returned the letter, after all. Thinking now is like grasping at sea mist, feathery wisps of half-formed thoughts drifting transient through his fingers. More drink is probably not the answer, but Erwin supposes it’s worth a try.</p><p>Half an hour and far too much gin later, he staggers from the ballroom and out into the corridor, drunk, sick to his stomach, and barely able to stay on his feet. The cooler, fresher air soothes his nausea, and he finds takes a seat perched on the windowsill by a huge, sweeping window at least twice as tall as him. He slumps there, head resting against the glass and eyes half-shut, alamort in the quicksilver glow of the half-moon.</p><p>Levi hadn’t looked at him <em>once</em>. Eventually he’d just turned his back, and whenever Erwin moved to look him in the face, he’d turn again – all the while avoiding Erwin’s eyes. He’d watched, helpless, as Levi spoke and drunk with all manner of people, from old survey corps veterans to noblewomen to the military policemen he’d so vehemently hated years before. Each new person Levi had spoken to was a new stab, each time he refused to look a brutal twist of the knife. It left Erwin in tatters, bleeding out and scarcely able to hold himself together.</p><p>Even now, away from the roar of the ballroom, Erwin still thrums with the urge to cry and shout, to rage at himself for being so utterly <em>stupid</em>. And yet, Erwin knows he deserves it all. Sitting there stewing in his misery, he has half an awful idea to throw himself out of the window and down onto the paving below, to put an end to it all. Having his death written off as a drunken accident, a tragic end to a supposedly great man, doesn’t sound all too bad.</p><p>A dull crash draws his attention back to the present. The hall’s huge oak doors swing open violently, squealing on their hinges as they’re flung back. Erwin looks over, turning in time to see Levi storm from the ballroom, his coattails aflutter in the wake of his frustration. He wears a ferocious frown, eyes murderous and fixed on the ground as he barrels down the corridor toward Erwin’s windowsill.</p><p>Levi stops dead in his tracks when he looks up and notices. Erwin’s lips part, agape for a moment.</p><p>“Levi.”</p><p>He begins to speak and the stops. A couple of hours ago he’d had some semblance of a plan, by now it’s all gone, lost to vodka and anxiety and the adrenaline of once again being in Levi’s presence. They’re both wordless for a moment, Erwin's eyes locked with Levi’s, and all he can feel is relief.</p><p>“How’s your <em>wife</em>?” Levi snarls, rounding on Erwin.</p><p>Erwin sits and gawps, stupefied by the drink and the shock of having Levi finally acknowledge him. Years of thinking and wishing and hoping amount to... <em>this?</em> Levi stands in front of him, looking as if he’s found a particularly displeasing stain on the floor. If it weren’t for the window at Erwin's back, he would have shrunken away from Levi’s glare.</p><p>“My... Wife?” Erwin repeats slowly, “I’m not married.”</p><p>Levi scowls, “couldn’t find a girl who’d have you?”</p><p>Erwin stays quiet. Levi makes a noise somewhere between a grunt and a tut and begins to turn around and go back the way he’d come.</p><p>“Levi, wait, please,” Erwin slurs, voice trembling in his throat.</p><p>“You’ve got some nerve,” Levi says slowly, spinning on heel and fixing him with a glare that cuts to the quick.</p><p>“I know, I’m sorry.”</p><p>“Fuck off.”</p><p>“I...” Erwin trails off, before he continues feebly, “how have you been?”</p><p>“Shove it.”</p><p>“I’m sorry for –”</p><p>“I fought with you for nearly twenty years.”</p><p>Levi’s voice is a hiss, the scratching rattle of scale against scale as a snake coils in time to strike. Levi looks like he wants to hit him, fists clenched at his sides and body strung taut. Even through the suit his tension is fearfully obvious. Erwin’s seen Levi fell titans and men alike and for a moment he’s afraid, but he knows he’ll deserve whatever he gets. Probably more, really – Levi is, deep down, a kind man, and he doesn’t like to hurt. He’ll go easy.</p><p>Levi brings a hand up to his face, swiping at a bead of sweat gathering on his forehead. Erwin flinches back violently at the sudden movement, spasmodically, pulse racing in his throat. The back of his head bumps audibly against the glass.</p><p>“The <em>fuck</em> is wrong with you?” Levi spits, eyebrows furrowing incredulously.</p><p>Erwin looks up, barely able to meet Levi’s eyes as humiliation burns hot on his cheeks. He feels sicker than ever. The world tips nauseatingly around him, turning almost as if he and Levi are at the centre of it all, the centre of their own galaxy. And they could have been – but Erwin had that chance already, that ship sailed years ago, and it’s his <em>own</em> fault.</p><p>Erwin hiccups. Then he sobs. He sobs again, and again, and he can’t stop himself. Tears wet his eyes and begin to stream down his face, great shoulders heaving with each wretched cry. He feels his face flush and string of snot hangs from his left nostril. Erwin wipes it away with the back of his hand, sniffing. Levi stares, stony-faced and stiff as a stone-carved statue. How long they stay like that Erwin doesn't know.</p><p>“Fuck me,” Levi mutters.</p><p>Erwin grunts and doubles over as he gags out of the blue, retching up a foul mix of half-digested drink, blue cheese, and smoked salmon over the marble flagstones. He’s aware enough to thank whatever Gods might be looking down on him that the corridor is still empty.</p><p>“That’s <em>disgusting</em>. Shit, it’s everywhere,” Levi prances backwards away from the mess, face twisted with his revulsion, “Erwin, you’re a fucking cunt.”</p><p>Levi says it like he’s been waiting years to say it. Erwin shivers, drawing great, trembling breaths between each sob, gasping for air like a drowning man. The aftertaste of vomit is sour and stale and miserable. His pulse rages in his ears and he has a vague, far-off thought of how ridiculous, how pitiful, he must look – a one-armed drunkard, a broken commander fallen from a grace he never had, unable even to keep down his own tears.</p><p>Levi mutters something under his breath, soft as the babbling of a brook, too low for Erwin to hear. Erwin continues to sob.</p><p>“Erwin, <em>shut up</em>,” Levi snaps, pressing fingers at the bridge of his noise in frustration, “alright, enough of this shit. You need to sleep.”</p><p>“’M fine,” Erwin sniffles and shakes his head, adamant.</p><p>“Well, I can’t fucking leave you here like this,” Levi snaps, “can you stand?”</p><p>Erwin nods, yielding to Levi’s wants and deep down just pleased to be with him. He hauls himself to his feet and stumbles forward immediately as if the floor had been tugged from beneath him. Erwin gives a surprised yelp as he starts to fall, arm flailing before Levi lunges to catch him, slinging Erwin’s arm over his tiny shoulders. Levi, his bastion for years, his anchor during the war, the man who gave him everything he’d ever asked, keeps him standing yet again. Erwin sighs, turning his head away.</p><p>“<em>Fuck</em>, your breath stinks.”</p><p>“’M sorry.”</p><p>Levi doesn’t answer. Together they shuffle down the corridor, Erwin slumped uselessly against Levi and Levi glowering as he goes. Erwin’s feet scuff on the floor, legs clumsy and cloddish with drink. He basks in his helplessness of it, the feeling of yet again being close to Levi after so long – even if Levi hates him, even if Levi wants nothing to do with him, selfish as Erwin knows it is. The shame of it eats him up like fire but he’s too far gone to care.</p><p>“Don’t deserve this,” Erwin murmurs, smudging the words together with his drunkenness, “don’t deserve you.”</p><p>“Shut the fuck up,” Levi hisses.</p><p>He can almost hear the exasperated roll of Levi’s eyes and the curving sneer of his lip. The maze of corridors and tangle of left-turns then right-turns are lost on Erwin. Ivory walls swim by, twisting eddies of sickly curtains and haughty paintings, phosphenes in the wind. Before he really knows what’s happened or <em>where</em> exactly he is in the building, Levi’s helping him down onto the edge of a plush four-poster bed.</p><p>As soon as he’s sat down, Erwin groans brokenly and leans over the side of the bed to vomit again. It’s mostly bile this time, spattering over his shoes and the stone floor. He keeps gagging even when there’s nothing left to come up, retching and trembling with his hand knotted into the blankets and his eyes screwed shut.</p><p>“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Levi growls somewhere above him, the disdain in his voice enough to make Erwin feel ill all over again.</p><p>“Ugh,” Erwin wipes his wet eyes and sits back up, swaying in place, “I’m sorry.”</p><p>Levi patters off to the bathroom for a moment, wordlessly, leaving Erwin in nauseous purgatory until he marches back, setting something down in the sheets beside him.</p><p>“Alright, there’s a washbowl here. Fucking <em>use it</em> if you need it.”</p><p>Erwin nods.</p><p>“And wipe your damn mouth.”</p><p>Erwin takes the terrycloth handtowel Levi offers, fumbling it about his lips in soft cotton kisses. Levi turns and busies around the room, lighting candles instead of the new electric lights and pulling the curtains half-shut. He thinks foggily of the weeks after he’d lost his arm, where Levi had taken care of him so dutifully, tending to him day after day and taking on Erwin’s paperwork on top of all that.</p><p>“Why the fuck did you drink so much?” Levi chides, drawing Erwin out of his hazy memories, “this is a formal fucking event.”</p><p>“You were ‘voiding me,” Erwin slurs, not sure if Levi really wants an answer, “didn’t know what to do. Was looking forward to seeing you. ‘S stupid, sorry.”</p><p>A pause. Silence. And then –</p><p>“I’m sorry,” Levi says flatly, though he doesn’t sound as if he means it.</p><p>“<em>I’m</em> sorry, Levi, I’m so sorry,” Erwin prattles, tongue drunk and loose.</p><p>Levi looks over his shoulder sharply. His eyes are seething, lakes of lava rage threatening to boil over. In him then Erwin sees a tiger, like the ones he saw in the depths of the unsullied rainforests years ago, claws steel flashes behind lush leaves, lip curled to bare a mouth of daggers; a devourer worthy of his legend.</p><p>As soon as it’s there, it’s gone. Levi sighs and turns to look out of the window again. Erwin thinks he sees a slightl shake of his head. The guttering candlelight plays on Levi’s face, casting his frown in sharp-edged shadows. His shoulders hunch and his body goes lax with acquiescence. Quiet falls between them. It’s uncertain, buzzing with tension, and Erwin loves and hates it at the same time. To be with Levi again after so long is a blessing, even with the rift between them. He’ll take this for a thousand years if it means he’ll be with Levi.</p><p>Erwin almost falls to the side and jerks himself up straight, scarcely able to stay upright. Levi watches from the corner of his eye, arms crossed and lips pursed.</p><p>“Take your shoes off,” Levi wrinkles his nose with distaste at the sight – and smell – of Erwin’s vomit-soaked shoes, “I’ll clean up. Get some fucking sleep.”</p><p>“Thank you, Levi.”</p><p>Levi turns his back as if hadn’t heard, disappearing off into the bathroom and shutting the door hard behind him. Erwin tosses his shoes away and flops down onto the bed with a huff, lying on his side and letting his eyes shut while he wills himself not to throw up again. Exhaustion catches up and he’s asleep before he knows it, swallowed up by a great velvety nothingness.</p><p> </p>
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  <p>*</p>
  <p> </p>
</div><p>Erwin wakes the next morning queasy and aching. Blearily, and after a moment to ground himself, he realises he’s nestled up in <em>Levi’s</em> bed, in <em>Levi’s</em> room, swathed carefully in layers of soft fleeces and silks. The room is clean and smells faintly of soap. Levi dozes in the gaudy satin armchair by the window, arms crossed and head nodding with each of his shallow breaths. Outside the sky is deep velvet blue, pensive before the dawn. For a moment everything is okay.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>IV</p><p>
  <em>together</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Erwin sits up, head spinning and stomach lurching. The red-and-chrome curtains hang half-open, threaded with gold glinting in the gloaming, and the room’s skirting boards are furnished with slithers of gleaming ivory. It’s bare of belongings save for Levi's small backpack slung in the corner. As soon as Erwin turns to get a better look around the room, his stomach churns and he lunges for the basin Levi had given him the night before, vomiting until there’s nothing else left to come up.</p><p>“At least it’s in the basin this time.”</p><p>Erwin looks up when Levi rasps, miserably clutching his bowl of sick. He’s looked over in time to watch Levi stretch, disheveled-yet-comely after a tipsy night in the armchair, attractive in that way only Levi is.</p><p>“Sorry about this,” Erwin says, sheepish, “I must be getting old. I can’t drink like I used to.”</p><p>“Had to bring you back to make sure you didn’t choke on your own sick and die,” Levi gets to his feet as he explains, “you were a fucking mess. I couldn’t leave you like that.”</p><p>Erwin sits silent, struck for a moment by Levi’s kindness, that valor he keeps hidden deep beneath his prickly outside, the glut of sweet syrup at a cactus’ core. He thinks back on the fuzzy, half-there memories of the night before, a mess of nausea and stumbling and crying, and wonders again how on earth he ever was so lucky as to earn Levi’s pity.</p><p>“Oh. I don’t remember,” Erwin lies, though he knows Levi will see right through it, “thank you.”</p><p>“No shit,” Levi huffs, “now get the fuck out of my room.”</p><p>Erwin nods. Levi’s tone is grim, hard, rough, it’s the way he’d speak to a stranger rather than the man he’s spent a decade and a half fighting beside. He should give up and Let Levi go like he did all those years ago – it's best for Levi to live without him, <em>Erwin knows</em> – but he’s rotten to the core, selfish and spoiled, and he can’t turn his back on Levi again knowing what life is like alone.</p><p>Erwin pauses. It’s time for another gamble. Levi shows him a warning glare when he hesitates, a flash of dagger teeth and striped pelt in the underbrush. Erwin’s heart flutters in his chest.</p><p>“I just want to apologise,” Erwin says, “for the way I treated you and the things I said back then.”</p><p>“Back when?”</p><p>Levi is completely aware of when he means, Erwin’s sure. He’s pushing, making it difficult on purpose, making Erwin spell out exactly what he means - but if Erwin stands a chance of making this better, of even <em>starting</em> to make it better, he has to follow along.</p><p>“Right after the war ended, at the peace celebrations,” Erwin says, humoring Levi, “I’m sorry for saying the things I did.”</p><p>“Don’t be,” Levi shrugs, his face betraying nothing, “that all?”</p><p>Erwin's playing an impossible game - knowing how far to push Levi, how far he can press and prod before he crosses the line, how far Levi <em>wants</em> to be pushed. It’s as foolish a folly as predicting the weather or trying to tame a wild beast, and just as compelling.</p><p>“I’m sorry for leaving,” Erwin continues, taking another roll of the dice, “I’m sorry for all of it, I’m–”</p><p>“<em>Don’t be</em>,” Levi snaps, “just shut the fuck up, alright? It’s done. It’s alright.”</p><p>The rise-fall of Levi's chest is wild and ragged. His marble mask is cracked and beneath it all Erwin can see something small and scared. The silence crashes down between them like a felled titan. Erwin takes another gamble; he sits down on the edge of the bed. Levi lets him, watching warily all the while.</p><p>“We have so much to catch up on.”</p><p>“Do we?”</p><p>“Of course, it’s been so long. How have you been?”</p><p>“Six fucking years,” Levi spits, “nearly seven.”</p><p>Erwin stares and wills himself to stay calm. He feels as if he wants to throw up again.</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>“You never thought to come back? Not <em>once?</em>” Levi’s words are like lashing wildfire, each syllable scorching, “did it not mean shit to you?”</p><p>Erwin frowns, cut to the quick. He wrestles with himself to think about something useful, <em>anything</em> other than how much he’s hurting Levi.</p><p>“It did, I’m sorry. I was busy after I came back, I bought a house by the sea, on the north coast –”</p><p>“I don’t <em>care</em> about your house.”</p><p>“Would you like to come and visit?”</p><p>“You think that’s going to make it better?” Levi snarls, rounding on him, “I’m not stupid, I see what you’re doing. You think it’s going to change what you did? Invite me over for some fucking tea and I’ll forget? You fucked off for <em>seven years</em> and turned up like nothing happened. The fuck am I supposed to make of that?”</p><p>“I don’t know, Levi,” Erwin says, dropping his gaze, yielding to Levi’s bristling fury, “it won’t change anything but it’s the least I can do.”</p><p>Levi scowls, face twisted with his disgust and his contempt. Perhaps there’s some sadness there too, Erwin looks away too quickly to tell for sure.</p><p>“What, I come back and see your shitty house?”</p><p>“That’s the idea,” Erwin nods, “for a few days, a week, however long you like.”</p><p>Levi sneers, “are you really that lonely?”</p><p>Erwin shakes his head, “I just want to catch up. Like you say, it’s been too long.”</p><p>Levi doesn’t reply. Erwin looks over at him and finds him glaring into the flagstones, fingers tugging at his cuff in frustration. The muscles in his arms twitch and tense. Erwin can tell he’s torn, and he doesn’t know which he’d rather Levi choose. Come visit and indulge Erwin’s selfishness, or decline and free himself of Erwin for good?</p><p>“If that’s what you want, then fucking fine.”</p><p>Levi acquiesces, his mask crumbled at his feet. He glares bitterly over at Erwin, looking as if he’s caught part-way between relief and defeat. Erwin hates himself for being glad.</p><p> </p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*</p>
  <p> </p>
</div><p>Levi sits opposite Erwin as the train rolls away from the platform. He slouches sullen, elbows resting on the table and fingers intertwined beneath the elegant curve of his chin. A patchwork of fields and new-sprung towns rushes by like a river, blurred and smudged as the train gathers speed due North. Quiet hangs between them but Erwin finds that it isn’t wholly uncomfortable - between the rushing of the engine and the swaying creak of the carriage, he’s reminded of the nights they’d spent together years ago. They’d drunk tea and said little, basking in each other’s presence. It’s a good memory, a warm one. Erwin hopes they’ll have nights like that again.</p><p>He breaks the silence first, not twenty minutes into the journey.</p><p>“So, how did you find the party?”</p><p>“Shit.”</p><p>“I thought you might have,” Erwin chuckles, his smile fading when Levi gives him no further attention.</p><p>He says nothing more, knowing better than to start interrogating Levi then and there. Silence falls once again. The staccato-clack of the rails beneath punches a rhythm unforgiving as the waves crashing on the cliffs, over and over and over until, an hour later, a trolley serving refreshments trundles past.</p><p>“Two teas, please,” Erwin says, giving the serving girl the most polite smile he can muster, “black, with sugar. And two of those teacakes.”</p><p>Erwin pays for both. Levi mutters thanks as the woman hands him his tea and cake, taking a delicate sip and turning his attention to the gorse-heath rushing by outside.</p><p>“So, what have you been up to?” Erwin asks, “since the peace?”</p><p>“Not much,” Levi says shortly, taking a pointed slurp of tea.</p><p>Levi doesn’t look over when he speaks, keeping his eyes fixed on the distant mountains.</p><p>“Did you do any travelling? I heard Hans went up North, to the pole.”</p><p>“No. And, yeah, they told me when they visited.”</p><p>“Oh,” Erwin says, pausing for a moment, “how’s that house you were looking at?”</p><p>“Fine.”</p><p>They say little more for the rest of the three-hour journey. Erwin buys more tea and cake, and Levi gazes out at the landscapes passing by. When they step out into the wind the air is fresh and wet and salty, and Erwin can smell rain and sea on the breeze. A fleece of crumpled clouds drift swollen in the sky above and the chalky cliffs frown down at them from the edge of town.</p><p>Levi walks through town at Erwin’s side as if he’d never left. He spares little regard for the streets passing around them as they make their way in silence to Erwin’s house, staring straight ahead in that usual doleful way of his. Erwin dares to snatch glances out of the corner of his eyes every now and then, watching the breeze ruffle Levi’s damp hair and the raindrops catch in his eyelashes.</p><p>“Here we are,” Erwin says as they reach his front door.</p><p>Levi tuts and follows Erwin inside, apparently unimpressed. The little corridor is mostly bare, save for a few oddities Erwin’s collected on his travels – fossils of ancient sea creatures still in their rocks, pressed butterflies, old books with frayed pages and broken spines.</p><p>“Fuck, do you ever fucking dust in here?” Levi grouches, kicking off his shoes, “it’s worse than your office.”</p><p>“Sometimes,” Erwin assures, “you can put your stuff in the spare room. It’s upstairs, next to my bedroom.”</p><p>He hears Levi mutter something under his breath as he pads up the stairs. He goes silently, walking as quietly as he used to back in the barracks, where he’d spend lonely nights drifting through the empty corridors like a ghost. It’s a small miracle to have Levi stalking his house, something he’d wished for and dreamed of but never <em>really</em> thought would happen.</p><p>Levi returns and flops down onto Erwin’s sofa, lounging as if the place were his. Erwin gives him a smile. Levi stares as if he hasn’t seen it. They’re both quiet for a moment. An uncertain mist hangs between them, an awkwardness that Erwin can’t quite breach. Not yet. But he’ll keep trying, for however long Levi will let him.</p><p>“Shall we take a walk before it gets dark?” Erwin asks, breaking the uncomfortable silence, “the rain isn’t too bad. We can go to the beach, if you like.”</p><p>Levi shrugs, “sure.”</p><p>They say little on the amble down. Erwin points out the market, the town hall, the bookshop, his favourite café, and Levi nods as if he couldn’t care less. The wind whips up and the drizzle worsens once the two of them are down on the sand. Sea-spray stings at Erwin’s eyes, forcing him to turn his face away.</p><p>“Shitty fucking beach,” Levi says, wrapping his jacket tightly around himself.</p><p>“It’s nicer in the sun,” Erwin replies, “much nicer.”</p><p>Levi steps over the seaweed strewn up on the pebbles, nimble feet picking a clean path over the rocks. The sea rushes and sighs as they go, filling the silence with its pleasant burble. The path weaves between snaggletooth shards of boulders at the far end of the beach, offering them a reprieve from the rain.</p><p>A gull soars up from a deep crevice in the rocks when they come too close, taking wing in a flurry of feathers. Startled, Levi throws himself backwards, reflexively bringing an arm up to defend himself, and drops into a defensive position. He’s half-crouched, curled like a tiger about to strike complete with all of the feral strength of one too. Erwin sees him realise his mistake a half-second later when he straightens up.</p><p>Seagulls jeer down at him from their perches on the cliff face. Levi pays them no heed, and carries on along the shore without explanation. Erwin understands, and he doesn’t press. He too has woken in cold sweats, seen warped titans in the trees and the shadows of the nighttime, and scared himself senseless over things as harmless as a seagull. The scars of the war will never heal, not really. And Erwin knows that weren’t for him, Levi wouldn’t have to live with those scars.</p><p>They turn back at the base of the cliffs, trudging back along the shingle and up to the promenade. Along the esplanade, before they take the turn up to Erwin’s neighborhood, they pass the already-bustling <em>Jolly Cod</em>, crammed with people eating late lunches and early suppers, drinking away the end of the afternoon. Levi looks up, eyeing the place with a scowl.</p><p>“The fuck is a cod?” he snorts.</p><p>“A fish. They come from cold places.”</p><p>“Stupid name.”</p><p>Erwin smiles, “I suppose.”</p><p>He pauses before he speaks again, betraying his uncertainty. Now he has Levi here, everything feels so much more precarious. If Levi notices, he makes no indication of it.</p><p>“We could eat there later, if you like. The food’s good.”</p><p>Levi shrugs, “I don’t wanna eat the shit you cook, anyway.”</p><p>“Alright, good.”</p><p>Once they’re back and dry, Levi plucks a book from his backpack and spends the sunset reading, curled up like a cat on Erwin’s sofa. He says nothing but accepts a cup of tea with a grunt, eyes fixed on the pages. Erwin busies around, tidying and making a bed for Levi in the spare room, taking a moment every now and then to glance at Levi nestled on his couch. It’s the best afternoon Erwin’s had in years.</p><p>Erwin finds the bathroom door ajar when he goes to change that evening. He pauses, staring. Levi’s hunched over the ceramic, scrubbing furiously at his hands with the washcloth. Porcelain skin is red and raw, the edges of his nails lined with blood and suds. Whorls of angry steam curl up from the tap as he works, shoulder blades jutting out against the thin cotton of his shirt. Erwin recognises what he’s doing straight away – it’s Levi's nervous habit, his bastion, his only way to ground himself. He used to scour his skin half-off during the war as well. Erwin remembers catching glimpses of bloodied hands and tattered skin after particuarly hard days; it had been worst after he’d lost his friends, his first squad, when Erwin had lost his arm, and then when he’d been tortured.</p><p>Erwin stands and watches Levi work for a moment, quietly saddened and unable to look away. A familiar pang of guilt rises up in his chest. And then, just like he had done all those years before, Erwin turns his back and says nothing, continuing on in silence.</p><p> </p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*</p>
  <p> </p>
</div><p>“It’s an octopus,” Erwin says with a boyish smile, brandishing a grilled tentacle in Levi’s face and cracking a grin when he recoils, “they live in the ocean. They’re related to snails, apparently.”</p><p>They’d arrived at <em>The Jolly Cod</em> an hour and a half ago, and after the starters of cured ham and almonds they’d moved onto more substantial things; Erwin has an entire grilled octopus on his plate, and Levi a bowl of thick trout soup. Their conversation, awkward at first, has melted into an easy stream of almost-banter. Though they attract attention and lingering glances – the man who saved the world and humanity’s strongest soldier are bound to draw curiosity – Erwin can’t bring himself to care. He’s dappy with delight at yet again sharing a meal with Levi. The stares of his townsfolk acquaintances mean less than nothing to him now.</p><p>“Fucking gross, you’re just like Hans,” Levi sniffs, “why even eat shit like that?”</p><p>“It tastes good.”</p><p>Levi huffs, unconvinced, and turns his attention back to his soup. Erwin watches Levi’s thin fingers tear at the bread, deft and scarred but as gracile as they had been twenty years ago, each nail trimmed perfectly and pale skin scoured clean. There are a few red splotches, places where he’s rubbed too hard, but the damage isn’t as bad as Erwin had thought it would be.</p><p>“Oi, Erwin.”</p><p>Erwin looks up, smiling at the sound of his name on Levi’s lips, “yes?”</p><p>“Quit that staring,” he admonishes, “I want to eat in peace.”</p><p>“Ah. Of course.”</p><p>Erwin drops his gaze at Levi’s chiding. Years ago, he would have carried on, knowing that he could have asked anything of Levi and it would be delivered, but things are different now and Erwin’s on thin ice - one wrong move and the floor will crack beneath him, and he’ll be swallowed up into the yawning depths. He has to tread carefully.</p><p>They drink and eat and drink some more, until Erwin grabs his empty glass and makes to fetch another cup of wine. Levi catches the trailing cuff of his empty sleeve, stopping him in his tracks. Erwin looks down, startled, and sinks back into his seat.</p><p>“Isn’t that enough drink? We don’t need you spewing again,” Levi chides, “remember that time you and Mike got drunk and I had to help you both back?”</p><p>“Yes, I do,” Erwin chuckles, “well, I remember you telling me. I was sick over Mike, wasn’t I?”</p><p>“Yes, <em>and</em> me. <em>And</em> you wouldn’t shut the fuck up. You talk so much shit when you’re drunk.”</p><p>“You know, I don’t find that too hard to imagine.”</p><p>“Good thing you don’t fucking remember.”</p><p>The ghost of a smile pulls at the edges of Levi’s mouth now, crow’s feet crinkling at the worn edges of his eyes. The sight of it has Erwin soaring, <em>euphoric</em>, because the more Levi smiles and the more he eases, the more this feels like whatever it was that they used to have. Erwin’s heart races again, but this time it’s with giddy excitement rather than anxiety.</p><p>As the night goes on, Erwin notices Levi begins to open up more, slow but sure as a tundra-flower unfurling for the midnight sun. He catches half-there smiles and jabbing jokes, and a mellow warmth in his face that Erwin hasn’t seen for almost seven years. He’s enchanted, unable to look away, and he curses the waiter when he delivers the bill for drawing his attention elsewhere.</p><p>“I’ll pay,” Erwin speaks before Levi can say otherwise, reaching in his bag for his wallet.</p><p>Levi shrugs and watches the goings-on around the pub with a detached kind of disinterest, ignoring the way the murmuring throngs of people around them look and leer at him. Erwin glances up at him between counting out the coppers. Levi catches his eye and it sends a shudder down his spine.</p><p> </p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*</p>
  <p> </p>
</div><p>Erwin pours them more drinks once they’ve stumbled back home – gin this time – and lights candles instead of his electric lights, before he flits off into the kitchen to fetch a bowl of snacks. He only has a half-packet of nuts in the pantry, but he supposes it’ll have to do. His fingers shake as he pours out the nuts, wound up with anticipation at the prospect of having another conversation with Levi.</p><p>When Erwin returns, he finds Levi out of his seat at the cramped little dining table and stood stiffly by the window. He doesn’t move, though he must have heard Erwin come back. Frowning, Erwin sets the bowl of peanuts down on the table between their untouched drinks.</p><p>“Something wrong?”</p><p>“<em>Yeah</em>,” Levi turns to face Erwin, “today, tonight, you were just like how you used to be. You came back like <em>nothing</em> happened. Seven fucking years. Are you really that cold of a bastard?”</p><p><em>Am I?</em> It’s a good question, Erwin thinks. Perhaps he’s still the demon who sent children to their deaths without remorse, and perhaps he always will be.</p><p>“I missed you, and everyone,” Erwin says, “I had lots to do. But I thought about coming back, really.”</p><p>The gin and peanuts are long-forgotten now. Levi starts to pace, to and fro in frustrated circles like a wild thing in a menagerie. His eyes glint madly in the half-light, frenzy stoked by too much alcohol and seven long years of stewing.</p><p>“Then why the fuck didn’t you?”</p><p>“I’ve said, I was busy," the lies come easily.</p><p>“Too busy to come back and see us? Or even me?”</p><p>“I came to the peace anniversary –”</p><p>“Yeah, because Nile fucking Dawk and the rest of those fucking pigs kissed your ass. What did they call you, a guest of honour? An esteemed soldier? A <em>war hero?</em>” Levi spits his words now, “did you never think about any of <em>us?</em> Are you <em>that</em> selfish?”</p><p>Erwin stays quiet. Levi’s words smart like a bullet. He almost comes up with another lie, but the look of Levi then, with his tired face rendered softly in the half-light, painted lovingly with each flicker of the candle, lips rosy and throat slender, has Erwin’s resolve falling away. His reticence crumbles and, quite suddenly, he doesn’t want to hide anymore - not from Levi - and he doesn’t want to run.</p><p>“I’m sorry. Back then, after the war, I left because I thought you’d be better off without me.”</p><p>His confession is bitter on his tongue, sour-sharp and vile like vomit. Erwin’s pulse hammers in his throat. His palms are damp. Levi stays silent, seething, watching, waiting.</p><p>“I know I don’t deserve this, not your time, or your friendship. I knew you’d be better off if I stayed away,” Erwin continues, softly at first and then louder, stronger, and once he’s started he can’t stop baring himself for Levi, every ugly, disgusting, worthless part of himself, “but I’m not that good of a man.”</p><p>Levi stares. Erwin almost wishes he could take it back, but the weight off of his shoulders is too sweet to regret.</p><p>“You dumb fucker. You stupid piece of shit, Erwin. The fuck gave you that idea? <em>That’s</em> why you stayed away?”</p><p>“Yes. I’m sorry. Really, I am.”</p><p>“Erwin. <em>Fuck</em>. You <em>cunt</em>,” Levi says, words stilted as if he’s struggling with himself to speak them, “everyone worried. <em>I</em> worried. I thought you might never come back.”</p><p>“I’m so sorry,” Erwin looks away, hating to watch Levi fight with himself and hating even more that he has no-one to blame but himself.</p><p>“You’ve said,” Levi scowls, “so, the fuck is this? You said you wanted a wife and a family and a perfect fucking life in the countryside. This isn’t it.”</p><p>“I changed my mind. I’m happy here.”</p><p>“Yeah? No woman to marry you? No kids?”</p><p>“I don’t want a woman to marry me,” Erwin says, and he means it.</p><p>Levi tuts, “then what the fuck <em>do</em> you want?”</p><p>Erwin stalls, voice dying in his throat. What <em>does</em> he want?</p><p>“Spit it out, Erwin. Don’t make me beat it out of you.”</p><p>Erwin heaves a sigh, “I want things to go back to how they were. With you and I, I mean.”</p><p>Levi scratches at the nape of his neck, eyebrows knitting together into a frown. He drops his stare for the first time, gazing at the dusty rug at his feet. He’s quiet for a while, taking his time to find the right words and string them together in the right way. Each second carries. Erwin waits.</p><p>Finally, Levi speaks.</p><p>“Right, Erwin, I – I don’t want things to go back to how they were then have you fucking decide you’re too good for this, or not good enough, or whatever bullshit you think,” Levi shakes his head and stops his pacing, gazing at Erwin from his spot in the centre of the room, “no more martyr shit, Erwin. No more.”</p><p>“No more,” Erwin echoes, watching Levi carefully, gauging, calculating, always listening for cracks in the ice, “I’m sorry. I regretted it every day, it was the biggest mistake I’ve ever made. I – when you didn’t reply to my letter, I thought we’d never speak again, I didn’t know what –”</p><p>“What letter?”</p><p>“I sent you a letter back in October... You didn’t get my letter?”</p><p>“I didn’t get any letter. Not from you.”</p><p>He didn’t get the letter. He didn’t turn Erwin down. He didn’t want to live the rest of his life without Erwin. <em>He didn’t get the letter</em>.</p><p>“You didn’t get my letter,” Erwin repeats, “I thought you didn’t want anything to do with me.”</p><p>“And you didn’t send a follow-up?”</p><p>“I assumed you wanted to be left alone. I wanted to respect that. And I figured you’d be at the celebrations.”</p><p>“I can’t believe you’re so fucking stupid.”</p><p>His voice is affable now – as affable as it can be – and Erwin knows then he’s the luckiest man ever to have lived. His chest swells with warmth and before he can stop himself, he’s crossing the room and pulling Levi into an awkward, one-armed hug.</p><p>Levi lets it happen. He stands warm and still and perfect and a couple of seconds later Erwin feels Levi’s arms tight around him. Erwin feels as if his heart might stop there and then. Levi smells clean and his hair carries a gentle scent of lemon and orange and grapefruit, fresh fruit ripened in groves under the sun.</p><p>They’ve hugged only once before – when Erwin had awoken from his coma after losing his arm – but it hadn’t been like this. Erwin remembers it as stiff and ungainly, unsure and afraid to blur the lines. Now Levi’s body fits perfectly against his, snug against his chest with his head tucked beneath Erwin’s. It’s as if they were made for each other, made to hold each other like this, Erwin thinks giddily.</p><p>Reluctantly, Erwin lets him go. Levi stays where he stands, their chests almost touching with each exhale, close enough that Erwin can feel the heat of Levi’s body. He gazes down at him, wonderfully stuck, afraid to shatter the moment. Levi looks back, face unreadable.</p><p>Slowly, very deliberately, Levi lets his arm drop to the cuff of Erwin’s sleeve, trails his quivering fingers over his wrist, and then gingerly takes Erwin’s hand in his. Levi’s hand is tiny in his grasp, yet hard as steel, skin silken and calloused. Erwin feels a twist of anxiety and a swooping rush of something else. Levi must be able to hear his heart pounding, or feel his pulse racing beneath his skin, but Erwin can’t bring himself to care.</p><p>“Do you mind?” Levi asks, boorish and gruff as he always is.</p><p>His voice doesn’t betray him, though Erwin feels the way he trembles.</p><p>“No,” Erwin says, “I don’t.”</p><p>For a moment there’s nothing in the whole world but Levi’s eyes and the feeling of his hand in Erwin’s, small and strong and better than Erwin ever would have imagined. Each hot, wet puff of Levi’s breath tickles the hollow of Erwin’s throat. He takes it, Levi’s affection, his trust, though he doesn’t deserve it, greedy and foaming for anything good fate might bring his way.</p><p>“You know it isn’t true, right?” Levi asks, “why you left? It’s bullshit.”</p><p>Erwin almost pulls his hand from Levi’s. He doesn’t believe it, and he doesn’t want to think about not being strong enough to resist Levi, but Erwin humours him nonetheless.</p><p>“You think so?”</p><p>“Don’t give me that shit. <em>Yes</em>. Obviously.”</p><p>“I don’t deserve this.”</p><p>“Shut the fuck up, Erwin. Shut <em>up</em>.”</p><p>Erwin looks down at him. Their faces are so close that their noses almost touch. He can make out every crinkle in Levi’s lips, each eyelash golden in the candlelight, each pore and scar on his skin. Levi squeezes his hand. Erwin's quickened breaths, racing heart, and the drink he’s had make his head spin. He can’t quite believe this is <em>real</em>.</p><p>Levi stretches up, slowly, and after a stunned moment of inertia, Erwin instinctively leans to meet him. Their lips meet, gentle as the summer sea upon the shore. Levi’s kiss is tender, almost juvenile, and there’s a dark undercurrent of uncertainty in his eyes when he pulls away, an animal hesitation that he can’t quite hide. When Erwin stoops to kiss him again, he kisses back harder. Erwin slips his hand from Levi’s to cup the back of his head, fingers resting in the velvet-bristle of Levi’s undercut.</p><p>The candlelight gutters and outside the rain begins to pour. Levi breaks their kiss and leans forward to rest his head against Erwin’s chest. He feels exhausted, finally relaxed after a day of being tense, constantly on guard. Erwin wants to chant <em>I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry</em>, but instead he puts his arm around Levi and pulls him close. Nothing has ever felt so right.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>sorry for the haitus. I hope this chapter reads alright, I haven’t had as much time to edit as I would have liked but I wanted to get it out anyway. and sorry it’s a little longer than the others, the plot split up best this way. thank you for being patient ♡</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>V</p><p>
  <em>perpetual</em>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>“All these years...” Erwin says, “and you only tell me now?”</p><p>“Well, who’s the dumb cunt who ran off and didn’t show his ugly fucking face for seven years?” Levi scowls, rising up on his toes and reaching for another kiss.</p><p>“I wonder...” Erwin mutters, trailing off, “who could ever be that stupid, hmm?”</p><p>Levi looks hungry now, eyes dark as he goes for the kill, and it’s perhaps the most thrilling thing Erwin’s ever seen. It’s proof that Levi wants him – has always wanted him – and Erwin shudders hot at the very thought. His excitement builds, cool and thrilling like the steely promise of a sword-hilt clutched in his fist. Erwin brings Levi’s hand to his lips, kissing each calloused knuckle slowly. He makes it to the third before Levi speaks.</p><p>“Don’t go again,” Levi growls, “don’t you fucking dare.”</p><p>“I won’t,” Erwin says, “I’m sorry, I’m <em>sorry</em>.”</p><p>“Shut it,” Levi chides, grabbing Erwin’s face and tugging him down again.</p><p>Erwin stoops to catch Levi's mouth, neck and back jarring with the suddenness of it - he's not as young or supple as he used to be, though Levi kisses as though he doesn't feel the stiffness in his bones. Erwin tastes the trout soup Levi ate for supper and the tang of salt and sharp drink on his chewed-up lips. Levi pushes up against him, their teeth clacking as he crushes their lips together, and Erwin feels the press of his cock against his leg. They break their kiss, ragged-breathed and wide-eyed. Erwin’s sure his face will bruise.</p><p>“C’mon,” Levi hisses, grabbing Erwin’s hand.</p><p>Neither of them speak and the house is quiet save for the hasty shuffling of feet and nervous swallows of air as Levi leads the way up the stairs. His grip on Erwin is a vice and Erwin loves the ache, anchors himself with it as he stumbles up the stairs and into the dusty darkness of his bedroom. Levi pauses when Erwin starts to loosen buttons at his collar. Erwin can <em>feel</em> how tense Levi is, on edge and bristling, a powder keg. Erwin lets his shirt go and squeezes his hand. Levi worries his lip between his teeth and stalls, shirt hanging half-open. Erwin pauses. There’s a brief, stuttering silence. He wonders if he’s done something terribly wrong.</p><p>“If you don’t - if you aren’t,” Levi cuts himself off, clicking his tongue and <em>tch</em>ing his frustration, “we don’t need to do this.”</p><p>Erwin breathes out, relieved.</p><p>“I know,” Erwin says simply, smiling, “but I do, and I am.”</p><p>And that’s all it takes. Levi grabs at Erwin again, all earnest tongue and rough hands, and the way Levi kisses him then buries all his inadequacies. As he returns to unbuttoning Levi’s shirt, Erwin forgets that he will never be the man Levi deserves. They fumble with each other’s clothes until they pool in puddles on the parquet and Levi stands naked before Erwin, his sallow burned away by the lapping of a fiery blush up his chest, a mottled dappling of red and pink that Erwin's never seen before. His cock bobs from the junction of his thighs, hard already and wet with his eagerness.</p><p>Levi kisses him, fingers digging into Erwin’s cheeks as he pulls the two of them backwards onto the bed. There’s nothing but the burning of Levi's fingers on his skin, holding his face close, in his hair, his throat. Power surges beneath Levi’s skin, wild like the cut-throat current beneath a frozen river. Fierce as he is, he lets Erwin do as he pleases, yields to every touch, matches him breath-for-breath. Erwin gazes down at him, propped precariously on his one arm. Levi’s still corded with muscle and thick sinew where Erwin is softer now, his brawn sloughed away over years of idle days spent reading and eating rich fish and freshly-baked cake. He wonders how many hours Levi’s spent training himself into the dirt, years after his duty ended.</p><p>“Got fat, huh?” Levi jabs, but his hands are soft and careful down Erwin’s chest.</p><p>“I suppose,” Erwin murmurs, dipping his head to press bitten kisses to Levi’s jaw, “but what does it matter?”</p><p>Levi quietens and scrabbles to clutch Erwin close, head thrown back and arms locked around Erwin’s shoulders. He's stiff as Erwin kisses and breathes Levi in with licks and grazes of his teeth over the spiderweb of scars and wrinkles that cross Levi’s body now. Levi squirms, bowing up against him and whining as if he’s fighting to stay still beneath the unrelenting attention, as if he’s never been so appreciated before. Erwin draws back for a moment, watching Levi arch up for him, heart in his throat, and then he stoops to take Levi’s cock in his mouth.</p><p>Levi hisses and tenses his thighs either side of Erwin’s head, hands tight in Erwin’s hair. Erwin wonders that even now, after he’s been so hurt by Erwin, there is still enough trust left for this. The mattress squeaks with each bob of Erwin’s head, in time with Levi’s ragged groans and the haphazard rhythm of his hands bunching in Erwin’s hair, pulling and pressing with each of Erwin’s swallows and licks. He takes his cues from Levi’s noises, his huffs and strained cursewords and the way his hips jerk when Erwin circles his tongue against the head of Levi’s cock, on and on until Levi stops swearing and moaning and he goes silent, taut. Erwin glances up and sees Levi’s lips pulled into a grimace as pleasure echoes pain and he feels Levi shake and come undone beneath him, pushed to his edge and beyond.</p><p>He lies still for only a moment, his half-open eyes glinting in the low light as he catches his breath and basks in his after-warmth. Levi sits up and Erwin sets his rump on Levi's thighs, hunching over to kiss Levi again. He jumps when Levi takes his cock in his hand, fingers feather-light and teasing, only relenting when Erwin swears and grabs Levi’s hand, guiding his strokes harder and harder until his head falls back and his lips part and he’s choking on his groans, hand bunched in his sheets. He’s caught between Levi's hand and the searing gunmetal of his eyes and the way they crinkle at the edge when he smiles – or rather, smirks, curls his lip up in that comely way of his, puckish and leering, daring Erwin to come.</p><p>Guilt roils in his stomach, nauseating, and it’s then that his orgasm overtakes him. Erwin comes, lost in the seashell curve of Levi’s eyes and the shame of his very existence.</p><p>Afterwards, Levi lies draped on the mattress with his eyes closed and hair flung wildly around. Erwin watches as chest rises and falls, each dimple between his ribs and the soft curve of each muscle flexing, pulsing, quivering with Levi’s life. He dares to press a kiss to Levi’s cheek.</p><p>“Erwin,” Levi breathes, his voice a snatch of sea breeze.</p><p>“Mm-hm, I know, I know,” Erwin hauls himself up, “I’ll clean up –”</p><p>“No,” Levi rasps, shaking his head and half-opening his eyes, “c'mon here.”</p><p>Erwin stifles his surprise and flops back down with a huff. Levi wriggles over, whelving himself in Erwin’s arm and nestling in as if he belongs there – which he <em>does</em>, Erwin realises. Levi’s warm and heavy, limp with his chapped lips parted for his deep breaths, and he lies against Erwin like he was made to be there, as if Erwin was made to hold him. As his eyes close, Erwin wonders whether it’s by coincidence or design that the two of them fit so perfectly together in his bed.</p><p> </p>
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</div><p>Erwin wakes with a jolt. The night is sweet and dark. Muffled shouts from drunken revelers drift up from the streets outside and, at his side, Levi sleeps. He’s curled against Erwin’s flank with his head tucked under Erwin’s chin and his nose nuzzled into the hollow of Erwin’s throat. He wonders for a moment if he’s still asleep, still cradled in the arms of a good dream, because surely sharing his bed with Levi is too good a thing to be real.</p><p>And yet, his throat itches for water; he isn’t dreaming. Erwin rubs his face and sits up, careful not to disturb his companion. Levi snuffles as Erwin eases his way out of bed, but he doesn’t wake, and Erwin shuffles on to the bathroom. He fumbles in the dark to fetch himself a glass of water. It’s only half-finished when Erwin hears the patter of feet across the floorboards.</p><p>“Erwin?”</p><p>It’s more of a mewl than a cry, shaky and splintered and croaky with sleep. Erwin starts and turns, wiping his mouth on his forearm.</p><p>“Levi?” he pokes his head around the door, blinking to adjust to the dim corridor, “what’s wrong?”</p><p>Levi’s naked with a blanket around his shoulders, hair strewn about in wayward clumps. Humanity’s strongest stands hunched against the doorway, and in that moment he looks so very small, and so very vulnerable. He’s a lighter sleeper than Erwin had remembered.</p><p>“The fuck did you go?” Levi says, brash as the fear in his face falls away and mellows into something that looks suspiciously like relief, “I got cold, come back to bed.”</p><p>Erwin’s eyebrows furrow into a frown. The upstairs of his house is close and stale and stuffy. <em>Not</em> cold.</p><p>“Yeah, yeah. Got thirsty. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.”</p><p>Levi rolls his eyes – Erwin only makes out the ghost of the gesture in the darkness, but it’s unmistakable – and turns, heading back to the bed. Erwin’s feet scuff as he follows in Levi’s wake, chiding himself for disturbing Levi because Gods know the man needs whatever precious little sleep he can get.</p><p>For a moment there’s a question in Erwin’s mind, a creeping uncertainty as to whether or not Levi will let him close again, whether their dalliance was a one-off, a slip-up, and whether Levi might have realised his grave mistake and push Erwin away.</p><p>Levi grabs Erwin by the wrist and tugs him forward, into the bed and out of his thoughts. They settle, resting with each other in a honeyed tangle of limbs, dozing off to the thrum of the world around them. Erwin’s fingers brush Levi’s forehead, gingerly as if Levi might crumble away and disappear if he isn't as tender as he possibly can be.</p><p>“Warmer now?” Erwin asks, voice hushed.</p><p>Levi doesn’t answer, just gives a long sigh and scoots himself as close to Erwin as he can get. The gloaming has rendered him vulnerable, something – be it the gentle darkness or seven long years alone – has torn down Levi’s walls. Erwin falls asleep too quickly to feel the guilt.</p><p> </p>
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</div><p>Levi is usually cankerous in the morning – Erwin remembers from their days together during the war, where it wouldn’t be unusual for Levi to fall asleep in his chair and wake hours later with a crick in his neck and a scowl on his face. This morning, though, Levi still slumbers as the room lightens. A trail of drool dries on his cheek, smeared by sleep, and Erwin immediately decides that this is the best morning he can remember.</p><p>Levi stirs when Erwin props himself up on his stump for a better view, opening his eyes enough to look up at Erwin. He blinks slowly, blearily, and Erwin scoops him up, holding him to his chest. His muscles are pleasantly sore when he moves, strained just enough to give him deep, satisfied twinges. The ache is sweet as he cranes his head to press gooey kisses to the soft skin of Levi’s face and neck. Levi allows it, likes it, even – or seems to – and tips up his chin to bare his throat for Erwin’s lips, grunting when Erwin squeezes him close. Everything’s still hazy with sleep, blurry and warm and lovely as Levi shifts, twisting in Erwin’s grip, and turns to press their bare chests together and shove his tongue into Ewin’s mouth. Levi’s hand wanders and grabs between Erwin’s legs, boorish as ever. Erwin lets his head loll back onto the pillow.</p><p>“What, too old to go again?” Levi rasps, quirking an eyebrow, “we have fifteen years’ worth of fucking to catch up on, you know.”</p><p>Erwin chortles. “That’s quite the proposition, Levi.”</p><p>Levi grins and pounces, tracking his lips down Erwin’s neck while he uses his free hand on Erwin’s chest, tracing along each bump and scar with calloused fingertips, each huff of his breath searing his skin. His flesh pebbles with goosebumps as Levi goes and for a moment everything’s sweet, sweet as syrup with his cock half-hard under Levi’s touches, shuddering beneath the thrill of Levi’s grazing teeth. Erwin winds his hand into Levi’s hair, letting his eyes flutter closed.</p><p>As soon as he has, he panics. The dark closes in on him. Guilt and sickness bubble up in his chest, frothing like angry seafoam whipped up by a squall, and quite suddenly he realises that he’s lying to Levi – he must be, surely – lying in the same way he’s lied to all his other lovers, and manipulated all of his soldiers as he sent them to their deaths. It’s one thing to lie to soldiers and lovers, Erwin knows, but quite another to lie to Levi. He <em>can’t</em> do it to Levi, not like this.</p><p>“Wait,” Erwin croaks.</p><p>Levi stops dead, pulling his hand away as if he’s been shocked. His eyes are wide and sharp. Erwin steadies his breaths and stares up at the ceiling. He can’t look Levi in the face.</p><p>“Are you sure you want to do this?”</p><p>Levi blinks. “Erwin. I had your dick in my hand. The fuck do you think?”</p><p>“I know,” Erwin swallows - and he’d quite like his dick <em>back</em> in Levi’s hand, if he’s being completely honest, “I just want to make sure.”</p><p>“Shut the fuck up,” Levi scoffs, “you think I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t want to be?”</p><p>“No.”</p><p>“Then why ask?” Levi shakes his head, “quit ruining the mood. You never made me do shit, so shut it.”</p><p>“Sorry.”</p><p>“I said, <em>shut it.</em>”</p><p>Levi takes him by the chin and kisses him again, soft, open-mouthed kisses – the gentle kind he never would have thought gruff, awkward Levi to be capable of. And yet he is, and Erwin relaxes into it and forces his thoughts away, if just for now. Levi tuts and grabs at Erwin’s cock again, stroking with grim-faced determination.</p><p>He stretches up to mutter against Erwin’s ear, “Erwin, lie down.”</p><p>Erwin shudders, and he does. He swallows thickly, lying back with a deep breath while Levi shuffles down, stooping presses a kiss to the inside of his thigh before burying his nose in the whorls of golden hair between Erwin’s legs. Erwin’s cock rests against his cheek, charmingly obscene in the way it glistens and leaves sticky trails across Levi’s face.</p><p>“This alright?”</p><p>Erwin nods, silent, watching.</p><p>“Staring like a freak,” Levi mutters, turning to slip the head of Erwin’s cock between his lips.</p><p>Erwin stretches to watch Levi shut his eyes and bob his head. He reaches down to thread his fingers through Levi’s hair, brushing his fingers against Levi’s cheek. For a moment there’s nothing but pleasure and Levi and the warmth of their sheets and for a moment there’s no dark fog over Erwin’s mind. Levi’s motions are unsure yet bold, tentative, his eyebrows drawn together into a frown of concentration. He’s tenacious to the core – he’s wonderfully, woefully, <em>Levi</em>. And that realisation alone is enough to send Erwin over the edge.</p><p>Levi pulls off and wipes his mouth on the blankets, shuffling back up the bed. Erwin holds him, smiling as Levi rolls his hips against urgently Erwin’s thigh.</p><p>“C’mon,” Levi grunts, turning his face to bite at Erwin’s neck.</p><p>“Patience is a virtue,” Erwin teases.</p><p>Before Levi can say anything else, he shoves his hand down between their bodies and takes Levi’s dick, stroking as best he can with Levi’s erratic thrusts. Levi gasps, gripping Erwin so hard it hurts. Levi’s precome makes it slicker, easier, and he comes not much later in a mess of shudders and swearwords groaned into Erwin’s neck. Erwin wipes his hand on the edge of the bottom-sheet and Levi lies ontop of him, half-dozing with the bliss of it all.</p><p>“Sorry for being angry,” Levi says, face still nuzzled into Erwin’s neck and voice muffled.</p><p>“What?”</p><p>Levi huffs, breath tickly against Erwin’s skin, “yesterday. I could tell it fucked you up but I was still angry. I – it was shit. You know. When you left.”</p><p>“I’m sorry.”</p><p>“I know. You keep fucking saying,” Levi says dryly.</p><p>“I <em>should</em> be sorry,” Erwin continues, feeling that dark fog start to roll back in, “I mean, I am. I’m so sorry. I regret it, I know I don’t deserve this.”</p><p>“Just go to sleep,” Levi mumbles, face still smushed into Erwin’s neck.</p><p>“... How much time have I wasted?”</p><p>“About seven years,” Levi deadpans, sarcastic as if their wasted time is something to laugh about.</p><p>“Yes, nearly,” Erwin says solemnly.</p><p>He rubs his fingertips through Levi’s undercut, dragging his nails in slow, reverent circles through the short-cropped bristles. Levi melts into him with a pleased, gruff noise in the back of his throat. It’s almost a purr. In each of Levi’s breaths Erwin hears the sighing of the waves on the sand.</p><p>“We’ll never get that time back.”</p><p>“Oh, shut up,” Levi gives him an affable nudge, voice still broken with sleep, “just stop. It’s alright.”</p><p>Levi heaves himself up, one hand on Erwin’s stomach and the other sinking into the mattress, and pushes his lips to Erwin’s. Erwin takes a handful of silky hair and pulls Levi closer. Where the kissing stops and the sleep starts, Erwin isn’t exactly sure.</p><p>Only once the clock by the bedside reaches eleven does Levi finally raise his head, untangle himself from Erwin, and sit up. Erwin’s eyes trail the groove of his spine, watching the muscle of Levi’s back ripple with his stretch, trembling with the exertion of it. His back is marbled with scars and liver spots, marred first by his lifetime of struggle and then by the ravaging of time.</p><p>Erwin sits up as well, reaching for his drawers. Kack-handed with sleep, he fumbles with his buttons as Levi saunters off to the bathroom still-naked. Erwin’s eyes follow him as he goes and if Levi’s clothes hadn’t been strewn around his bedroom floor, he would have written it off as a hallucination, a lunatic’s senile delusion. He listens to the muffled hiss of the shower as he buttons his trousers, slow but steady with the buttons, and Levi returns a couple of minutes later, groomed to perfection and dressed smartly in his usual off-white shirt.</p><p>Erwin stands in the centre of the room, shirt half-open and feet bare against the floorboards. Levi folds his arms.</p><p>“Do you still like eggs?”</p><p>Levi nods, “yeah. Why wouldn’t I?”</p><p>“Just making sure,” Erwin smiles, finishing straightening out his shirt, “Fried?”</p><p>Levi’s face lights up, a flicker of a smile passes and for a second he looks unashamedly <em>pleased</em> that Erwin’s remembered such a mundane little detail.</p><p>“Obviously.”</p><p>Erwin feels a sick flourish of pride in his chest at having earned such a prize, grinning to himself as the two of them plod downstairs, Levi following along in his wake as if he’s never left. He belongs there as much as he belongs in Erwin’s bed. Erwin watches Levi pick up last night’s forgotten gin and the floorboards creak beneath his bare feet as he goes; this is no dream.</p><p>He takes four eggs from their carton on the windowsill. Levi grabs his arm before he can do anything more.</p><p>“Erwin, let me,” he scorns, brushing past Erwin and reaching for the pepper, “I want it to be edible.”</p><p>“Ah. Of course.”</p><p>He concedes, dropping back and letting Levi take the eggs because he <em>is</em>, admittedly, the better cook. Erwin finds himself standing back to observe as Levi busies around the kitchen, watching the careful attention Levi pays to wiping down the countertop as the eggs hiss and spit in the pan. Erwin loves the sharpness of his glare, and the wrinkle of his nose as he scrubs down the granite. Levi doesn’t look up once, though Erwin knows Levi feels the eyes on his back.</p><p>A silence hangs over them as they eat, a cautious apprehension between the scraping of the cutlery and the wet sounds of their chewing, and when Erwin looks up to see Levi eating <em>his</em> food at <em>his</em> table in <em>his</em> house, he’s suddenly very afraid that he’s made a mistake.</p><p>“The fuck are you pulling that face for?”</p><p>Erwin startles, almost choking on his half-chewed mouthful of egg. He swallows hastily.</p><p>“Nothing, nothing.”</p><p>Levi tuts, “you’re worrying.”</p><p>“You think so?” Erwin almost smiles.</p><p>“I know you,” Levi tuts, tearing open the yolk with his fork, “don’t bullshit.”</p><p>“I’m just happy.”</p><p>“Sure.” Levi doesn’t look up, just watches his egg bleed.</p><p>“Really,” Erwin smiles, “I am.”</p><p>Levi <em>tch</em>es, shaking his head. Erwin nudges his foot against Levi’s under the table. Levi does nothing. His second nudge earns a twisted little half-smile and a playful shove back. Erwin is too lost in their game of footsie to indulge his worries any further. Levi sits back once he’s finished, hooking his foot around Erwin’s ankle.</p><p>“So? What now?” Levi drawls, stretching again, “don’t tell me you just sit around and read.”</p><p>“I’m boring, I’m afraid. But I <em>am</em> going to market now,” Erwin says, setting down his fork, “you can come if you’d like, pick out something you want to eat. They do tea as well.”</p><p>“Sure, whatever.”</p><p>Levi’s knees pop like gunfire when he gets up, lone shots that remind Erwin of the war. A cold, unpleasant feeling washes over him, worsening until Levi pipes up again.</p><p>“Now?”</p><p>“Yeah. They sell out if you don’t go early.”</p><p>“What about the washing up?” Levi wrinkles his nose, “don’t tell me you just leave that shit, you slob.”</p><p>Levi’s already got his and Erwin’s plates in his hand, and he’s already halfway to the sink before Erwin can reply.</p><p>“We can do it now,” Erwin offers – though he’s quite sure Levi’s already made up his mind on the matter – and follows Levi into the kitchen.</p><p>“We’d better.”</p><p>And so they do. Levi washes – of course – and Erwin dries. He watches Levi’s hands work, deft and scrubbed-raw where he’s washed too hard, and he kicks himself for even <em>suggesting</em> leaving the plates to fester. They work in an affable silence, a quiet understanding that makes Erwin smile and bump Levi’s shoulder whenever he passes him a plate. Levi tuts and puts on his irritated little façade - it just makes Erwin smile wider. After they finished and before they leave, Erwin catches Levi in the bathroom hunched over the sink and scouring his hands with a coarse cloth. He says nothing of it.</p><p>The rain drizzles as Erwin and Levi walk down to market. Their hands brush as they bustle around, snatches of mellow warmth in the brisk air as they weave between young couples with their toddlers and old women bearing baskets of vegetables. The market is as it always is, comfortingly familiar. Levi slinks off when Erwin makes conversation with the butcher, returning with a handful of tea leaves and herbs that he shoves into Erwin’s bag in time for the two of them to wander on to the bakery. The clouds part on their way back home.</p><p> </p>
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</div><p>Erwin naps after lunch, driven under the covers by his nagging anxieties. The vegetable soup Levi had insisted on making sits heavy in his stomach as he sleeps the afternoon away. He spends the hours drifting in and out of his dreams, waking properly only once the sun hangs low over the sea. Erwin finds Levi asleep beside him, curled against him with his eyes shut. He sits up, watching the curve of Levi’s spine and the way his ferocious hands lie lax, a tiger peaceful with his sleep. His toes, round and pink with their perfectly-trimmed nails, poke out from beneath the blanket. Guilt still dogs Erwin, even now, and he can’t shake the thought that Levi should be with a better man.</p><p>Levi opens his eyes. He doesn’t jump, just stretches, sits up, and rubs his eyes.</p><p>“How long are you going to stay for?” Erwin asks blearily, voice cracking with sleep.</p><p>“Dunno. A while,” Levi shrugs, “that’s what you wanted, right?”</p><p>“I mean, of course.”</p><p>“Good,” Levi says, “this <em>was</em> your idea.”</p><p>“I know, I know,” Erwin says, trailing off before he speaks again, “... But I didn’t expect this would happen. Really.”</p><p>“That we’d fuck?” Levi scoffs, giving a mordant chuckle, “or what?”</p><p>“I don’t know,” Erwin heaves a shrug, “all of it, I suppose.”</p><p>Levi barks a bitter laugh. Erwin snorts ruefully, smiling at the sound of Levi’s coarse laughter and the way it fills his house, and lets himself look over at Levi. His heart surges in his chest. Levi meets his gaze and, in a wash of sleepy candor, leans in to press a light kiss to Erwin’s upper arm. He leans back, nonchalant save for the sheepish almost-smile on his lips, and Erwin’s arm tingles where Levi’s lips touched him.</p><p>“You hungry?” Levi asks, swinging his legs off of the bed and planting his feet on the floor, “I’m gonna make dinner.”</p><p>“Well, that depends,” Erwin smiles, “what are we going to have?”</p><p>“Dunno,” Levi shrugs, “stew, probably beef. Now get your fat ass out of bed, you’re helping too.”</p><p>Beef is a treat indeed, something the two of them would have rarely had during the war. Erwin chops the vegetables while Levi manages the cooking, sprinkling in herbs and spices until the smell makes Erwin’s mouth water. They drink and talk late into the night, and more than once Erwin takes Levi’s hand in his, unable to stop himself. Each time Levi breaks his gaze and looks away, glaring into the wall and Erwin swears - <em>swears</em> - he sees a dusting of pink on Levi’s cheeks.</p><p>Levi follows Erwin’s hand up to bed once they’ve washed up and drunk some more, and though he’d been so eager for Erwin that morning, now he’s quiet. Erwin sees a faraway glaze on his eyes, and Levi's content to just shed his clothes and crawl into the blankets. He takes the same patch of the bed he had the night before, and already Erwin knows he’s claimed it for himself. A shaft of moonlight shines a square onto their pillow, casting Levi’s face in liquid silver. His high cheekbones shine, eyes glittering, and fleetingly Erwin is reminded of frozen forests twinkling beneath the northern lights. Erwin sighs.</p><p>“Quit torturing yourself,” Levi whispers in the dark, drawing Erwin from his thoughts, “you’re pitiful, you know that?”</p><p>Erwin snorts, rolling to gaze at the ceiling, “yeah.”</p><p>“I’m not joking,” Levi huffs, “I didn’t haul my ass over here just for you to mope.”</p><p>“Yeah, I know,” Erwin turns onto his side again, his face inches from Levi’s, eyes fixed on the pillow between them, “I’m sorry, I just keep thinking about stuff.”</p><p>“The fuck does it matter?” Levi flashes a glare, “forget it. How many times do I have to tell you?”</p><p>“How can I?”</p><p>“Dunno,” Levi grunts, closing the distance between them and squirreling himself against Erwin’s side, “but just do it.”</p><p>Erwin shuts his eyes as Levi nestles into the sheets, wriggling and shifting against him until he finally stills. Erwin lays his arm over Levi’s tiny body, craning his neck to cover Levi’s throat and face in a flurry of mawkish kisses, drowning him. The skin of Levi’s neck is soft beneath Erwin’s lips, warm and secret and scoured clean. Erwin lies back only once he’s satisfied, still and focused on nothing but Levi beside him; Levi’s warmth, the smell of his hair, and the unerring rhythm of each of his breaths.</p><p> </p>
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  <p>*</p>
  <p> </p>
</div><p>Levi is slow to leave Erwin’s embrace again the next morning. They lie awake wordlessly, cheeks pressed together as they watch the clouds go by and listen to the town wake around them. Seagulls wheel and soar above the rooftops, gliding in lazy circles and screeching their goodmornings into the sea breeze. Levi gets up first, kissing Erwin’s ear before he shuffles off to shower. Erwin lies in bed, gazing up at the sky and listening to the water burble, trying not to let his worries get the better of him. Breakfast, when it finally happens, is much the same as the day before. It’s a sweet kind of monotony, Erwin finds, softer than the rigid routine of the barracks yet complete with all of its comforts – Erwin’s favourite being Levi, of course.</p><p>Erwin steals glances at him while they eat their bacon butties, daring to look up and catch Levi mid-chew. Levi pretends he doesn’t notice – and Erwin pretends that <em>he</em> hasn’t noticed - and lets Erwin do as he pleases. After breakfast Erwin makes himself comfortable on the sofa in the living room, picking a new book to make his way through. Try as he might, he can’t focus on the words. The page swims as the fog that’s been brewing for three days rolls back in over his mind, dark and vengeful. Though Levi’s busying himself in the kitchen, just a wall away, Erwin’s alone in a sea with a chanting chorus of <em>guilty, guilty, guilty</em>. He sees his comrades’ corpses, the hundreds of children he sentenced to die, and worst of all he sees all the hurt he’s caused – most of all to Levi.</p><p>Levi sets two cups of tea down on the table. The thuds startle him.</p><p>“It’s dandelion, You like that shit, don’t you?”</p><p>“Yes,” Erwin says stiffly.</p><p>“Good. I bought it yesterday, thought you’d like it.”</p><p>His heart hammers in his chest, kicking at his ribs. Blood rushes in his ears, burning hot and scared in his veins, and the guilt tastes metallic on his tongue. It’s rank like blood, reeking and awful.</p><p>“What’s wrong?”</p><p>“Nothing.”</p><p>“Doesn’t seem like nothing,” Levi huffs, “well, fucking spit it out, then.”</p><p>Erwin searches for the words. Levi sips at his tea, eyeing him all the while. He’s watching, waiting, curious – but that’s not all that Erwin sees in his face. There’s worry there too.</p><p>“How can you be so kind to me? I’m, just -”</p><p>He stalls, voice dying in his throat as he searches for words. Speechlessness is as uncomfortable as it is foreign. Erwin meets Levi’s eyes desperately.</p><p>“You’re what? Old? Ugly?” Levi scoffs playfully, “we both are. So what?”</p><p>“No, I -” Erwin’s voice wavers and then breaks, “you deserve more. I’ve killed so many people, I put you through so much. Levi, I’ve done so much bad. I’ve lied to everyone.”</p><p>“Bullshit,” Levi says, “you can’t put that shit on yourself. It wasn’t you.”</p><p>“It <em>was</em>. I don’t deserve this. I’ve killed thousands of people. I can -” Erwin’s voice wavers, “I can feel it, <em>all the time.</em> All the shit I’ve done.”</p><p>“I don’t care about the shit you’ve done, or the shit you think you’ve done,” Levi says, “you’re still here. You didn’t die, that’s good enough for me.”</p><p>Erwin takes a long, slow breath.</p><p>“And the war...” Levi trails off, scowling to himself, “fuck, it’s over. You have to move on.”</p><p>“I keep thinking about it,” Erwin mutters, “and everything else.”</p><p>“It’s in the past. Fuck it. Don’t focus on it. We have better things to do now.”</p><p>Erwin doesn’t answer. Levi doesn’t speak. The silence is crushing. Tears prick at his eyes and shame smarts hot in his stomach and on his cheeks, searing like molten iron. Levi grabs him by the collar and pulls him forward. Erwin buries his face in Levi’s hair, focusing on nothing but the feeling of Levi’s arms around him, holding him close. Levi, who’s been through so much, who’s been his bastion for almost twenty years, again begins to pick up the pieces and put him back together.</p><p>“We'll get through this shit.”</p><p>Levi says it like he knows it, and Erwin wants desperately to believe him.</p><p> </p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*</p>
  <p> </p>
</div><p>Erwin sits on the sofa in the stupor of that afternoon, reading a book about a people who lived half a world away. He’d taken a walk before lunch and spent the early afternoon napping with Levi, and by the time the late afternoon arrived his mind had calmed. The window at his side hangs open and the sea breeze blows in, ruffling his hair with each of its breaths. Birds call from their perches on the rooftops outside as Levi emerges from the kitchen bearing a steaming teacup and two cinnamon biscuits. Erwin glances up as he sits beside him and grunts a hello, returning to his book as begins to sip at his tea, comfortable in the warmth of their quiet.</p><p>Levi breaks the silence first. “What’re you reading?”</p><p>“It’s about an ancient culture,” Erwin looks at Levi over the top of his book, “their literature and such. I saw their descendants when I travelled, they’re really quite wonderful; they still speak the language, it’s thousands of years old.”</p><p>Levi grunts, taking a disinterested sip of his tea. Erwin smiles fondly.</p><p>“You didn’t travel, did you?”</p><p>“Nah. Not really.”</p><p>“What <em>did</em> you do?”</p><p>“Fuck,” Levi shakes his head, setting his cup down on the little coffee table at their knees, “dunno. Not much. I thought about opening that teashop but... I don’t know. It’s hard being around people now.”</p><p>Erwin aches. Years ago, before Eren or the basement, they’d had hushed midnight conversations of half-thought out dreams of what life could be like after the war, and he remembered Levi’s little teashop well.</p><p>“I’ll help you with the teashop,” Erwin speaks before he can help himself, “if you want. Heavens knows this town could do with it.”</p><p>Levi cracks a grin, “I’ll think about it. I still don’t know... You gonna travel again?”</p><p>“Maybe,” Erwin smiles, “if I’m not too old. And if you’ll come with me.”</p><p>Levi cocks an eyebrow, “yeah? Maybe I will.”</p><p>“I’d like that.”</p><p>Levi smiles to himself – it’s a small thing, more of a grimace than a smile but Erwin loves it all the same – and rests his head on Erwin’s shoulder, leaning his whole weight into his side. Erwin shifts to accommodate him and they stay like that for the rest of the afternoon.</p><p>As the days wear on, Erwin loses count of the slow afternoons they spend like that together. The week wanes and as the next begins to wax, he settles into a newer, brighter rhythm. The daylight stretches long into the evening as summer dawns and the solstice approaches. Levi falls into place as if he’s always been part of the house, of Erwin’s life by the sea, and the days pass in a haze of ice creams, afternoon naps, and walks on the beach. Slowly, surely as the tide ebbing, Erwin's afternoons in bed become less and less frequent. His doubts fade and intimacy comes more easily now.</p><p>Levi makes a habit of stealing kisses wherever he can. He rises on his tiptoes, famished and starving for attention, hungry for whatever affection Erwin will grant him; and Erwin gives as much as he can. Too often – or perhaps not often enough – Erwin finds himself napping the late afternoon away with Levi in a naked mess of limbs, sweat-sheened and content to his bones.</p><p> </p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*</p>
  <p> </p>
</div><p>One morning after midsummer, early in the season when the sky begins to lighten not so long after midnight, Erwin wakes to the feeling of Levi starting beside him. He jolts and lies stiff for a moment, trembling like a deer. Levi sits up, the mattress dipping beneath him as he sets his back against the headboard. Erwin heaves himself up against the wall as well, brushing up against Levi as he does.</p><p>“Nightmare?” Erwin asks, voice rasping with sleep.</p><p>Levi gives a single, sharp nod.</p><p>“Bad?”</p><p>“The fuck do you think?”</p><p>Levi’s words are biting, exasperated, exhausted. Erwin nods, and he says nothing more. The horizon is light with the first of the dawn beyond the wine-dark waves. Levi huffs beside him, dropping his head against Erwin’s arm. His breathing is slowed now, his body steady. Erwin basks in the feeling of Levi’s skin against his and the warmth of his blood beneath.</p><p>“Isn’t this too good?” Erwin asks, daring to break their silence.</p><p>“Too good?”</p><p>“Yes. Our lives, I mean.”</p><p>Levi rolls his eyes and gives an affable shake of the head, “don’t you have anything better to think about with that fat head of yours? Give yourself a damn break.”</p><p>“I’m trying.”</p><p>“Not hard enough.”</p><p>“Is that so?” Erwin muses, fiddling with the hem of the blanket between his fingers.</p><p>“Erwin... This’ll get better.” Levi’s assurances are quiet, hushed, almost drowned out by the dawn chorus.</p><p>“I don’t know...”</p><p>“It will,” Levi mutters, “give it time.”</p><p>Erwin smiles, glancing at Levi from the corner of his eye. He’s washed-out and greyish in the low light. Erwin takes Levi’s hand in his. Levi squeezes.</p><p>“Levi?”</p><p>“Mmh?”</p><p>“Stay here. Live with me,” Erwin says, “if you want.”</p><p>Levi nods, staring out at the horizon, “alright.”</p><p>“What about your house?”</p><p>“I’ll take care of it later,” Levi shrugs, “but not right now.”</p><p>And there, he is glad beyond measure, gladder than a shipwrecked sailor to wash ashore, gladder than a man spared the gallows, glad that he didn’t throw himself from a cliff or a window, glad that he hadn’t decided to wade out into the sea and never return. Watching the first of the dayspring on Levi’s face, the crinkle of his eyelid, the weary wrinkles and the sprigs of grey at his temples; Erwin could watch it forever, an eternity of Levi and the day’s first wistful light – and he <em>will</em>, from that day until the end, he will.</p><p>“I love you,” Erwin murmurs.</p><p>“Yeah,” Levi says, still gazing out at the ocean as he threads his fingers through Erwin’s hair. It won’t be long before the sun comes up now, and Erwin can see the smallest, smallest smile on Levi’s lips as he speaks again, “I know.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>and there it is! eruri living happily ever after, as they deserve. this was my first ever long fic and I’m glad to finally finish it up. thank you so much for reading, and also thanks for the lovely feedback and interaction I got while writing this, I didn’t expect it and I’m very grateful. have a good day ♡</p><p>if anyone’s interested, this song <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVAIFSube-o">this song</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpdXBjwXbMg">this song</a> loosely inspired the fic</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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